To Be Alone
by Reminiscent Lullaby
Summary: "After 400 years, no one likes being alone." These are the words of a cat who had been lost from memory long ago, a traveler who has no where else to walk, an apprentice that strayed from an ancient path, a spirit who walks alone forever. You have likely never heard of her, but that doesn't mean she won't tell you her tragic story.
1. The Definition of Alone

**This is a new story of mine that I hope will get me back into the Warriors groove. School has been extremely stressful for me. I've spent a lot of nights as an emotional wreck trying to get everything done and having no will to do so, and it's put a dent in my enthusiasm towards writing. I've tried putting out one-shots for a different fandom, but I miss a lot of my old readers. I don't know how many of you are still here, but if you are, hi!** **Hello**,** nice to see you again! :) **

**I need to give a shout-out to The Spirit That Comes At Night,** **the fan fiction author who has created this marvelous world of Messengers. I'm going a bit astray from what she has established, but honestly, you need to check her out! She's an incredibly creative writer, and you probably won't understand too much if this if you have no clue what a Messenger is, so I suggest reading some of her latest stories to get an idea. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Warriors, nor the idea of the Messengers of the Unknown.**

The Definition of Alone

I once knew a cat of an ash-colored pelt and a gaze of soft, light amber. I remember not his name, though I have a feeling it was very suiting of his appearance. His voice was like a crisp leaf-fall breeze, cool, but not bitter; refreshing, but not bold, and he spoke humbly, whether offering praise, scolding a younger cat, or perhaps just casually bringing up the success of the morning's hunt. He never took himself too seriously, but was respectful to all he came across, even when he did not need to be, or in fact should not have been, but this is what has made him so memorable to me after all this time.

When he was still rather young, the muscles of a well-trained tom only beginning to ripple under his thick coat, he found himself drawn to the raven-black sleekness of his fairest denmate, who with her dark but warm eyes, was a compassionate and confident match to his modest existence. Her name, I also do not recall, but it was misleading. Upon hearing it the very first time, I feared to approach her. Her kindness was brought to light soon after.

Their love was something the rest of us could only aspire to have. It was not of passion, but sweetness, like the scent of wildflowers after the most gentle of rainfalls. The tom of amber-eyes and the she-cat of raven-fur were a pair that all knew of, from borderline to borderline, and what some considered to be a match sealed by fate...and who was there to complain when observing their radiant happiness that reverberated beyond the lands that contained them.

Their kits were healthy, both of the soft, light amber gaze of their father, and the raven-black sleekness of their mother. They were quiet, patient, calm as the newleaf season they were born into, and many thought them to be a gift from the ancestors that watched us. Never had we seen kits so lovely and so truly odd to play considerately as they did. This family was one of perfection, and that we've never seen before.

But we all know good things can only last so long.

It must be the unexplainable need to destroy, and to ruin, and to break, and burn everything that we can't have for ourselves, in that moment of hopelessness when one comes to realize that they themselves cannot ever achieve such a beautiful, once in a lifetime connection. Yes, _connection,_ not privilege, nor indulgent, but _connection._ Was this what was failed to be understood, before the raven-black she-cat, mere moons after birthing her children of perfection, was found slaughtered one morning at the summoning of the wailing kits who had witnessed the mess violently unfold? Oh the poor souls to view the stuffing of a mouse carcass down her throat (for her silence, we presume), the ripping of fur from flesh; to hear the dull crack, as her perfect head split unevenly against the ridge of a stone; to be stained themselves with her envy-inducing life, when in her last tortured seconds, three finely sharpened claws sliced her throat halfway through! Oh and their ash-colored father, who arrived heartbeats too late, and could only stare at what had used to be his match sealed by fate. With raven-fur matted with the redness of blood, and her dark, kind eyes wide open, she was laid to rest by the stream, never again to be seen.

His pain was the most superior I thought I could ever know. And that was before malice of a different kind struck the kits he had left.

When a fortnight of nightmares and terrors had passed and the moon glowed somberly in its fullness above them, the first cough sounded, reaching our ears, but meaning nothing to us. And so, it may or may not be true that the blame for their premature deaths rests in the paws of those who did not listen close enough.

This was a truly awful thing to see: small kits, still suffering the shock and the fear that had been set into them so recently, vomiting up sprays of blood, struggling to breathe, wailing for their mother who would never come. Their father, distressed and grief-stricken beyond all compare, watched as nothing could be done, and the perfect family he had left slowly but surely died. Why this happened, the cause of this horrible event remains a mystery even now, but not a doubt arose in any mind that the ash-colored tom was met with unbelievable dejection and anguish, burying his children at the water by their mother.

They had been his everything. They were what had made him happy, that had strengthened everything that he stood for, and what had he left? Nothing could ever provide him with the love, the compassion, and the perfection he had and deserved.

The tom of ash-colored fur and a gaze of soft, light amber suffered a great tragedy, but I dare not to say that he was alone at the end of it all.

I've known many cats like him, I've seen many stories like his, some less or more heart-wrenching. Cats have lost everything they cared about, found something to care about again, and lost that as well. Cats have been casted out from all they've ever known to wander without a sense of direction until they find a new place to belong. Very few others have met their fate without a companion at their side or a territory to call home. None of the cats, in all their agony know what it means to be alone. I didn't either, long ago, and learning it's true definition over all this time has been a journey in which there is no fine line between satisfaction and regret.

So many cats out there have it in their heads that there's nothing left for them to fight for, that there's no place where they belong. This world is full of fools, then, because they cannot distinguish the pain of grief, or depression, or fear, or confusion, or doubt, from that of loneliness, an agony so deep that even when it grows numb, you cannot forget the trouble it's caused. You disconnect from the world around you completely, and even the things that had once come naturally to you and everyone you've ever known start to play you like a fool.

When I walk, I cannot hear the paw steps I make, because it's been so long since I've stopped. The echo of the path I leave behind me never reaches the ears of any cat, whether they search, whether their ears are angled in its indefinite direction. What is there to hear of a cat with no story to tell, or life to leave behind?

When I speak, I forget how to say some of the words in my head because it's been so long since anyone has been listening. My words are worthless, and cannot create any impression on the will of the universe. There was once a time in which I tried with all sympathy I could manage to lead others down the path of their choosing, but destinies cannot be created, only discovered. Anyone who has ever told you otherwise is working in paw with the malignancy of fate to delude you into believing you are bigger than you are. Deception resides in even the strangest of places...

When the blackness around me shifts into a land of new discovery, I pass through without thought because it now all just looks the same to me. There are perhap trees, perhaps water, dunes of sand or rock or snow - name it! I've seen it all before. I find no companion in the paths that I walk, the winds that I walk between. These places are just as easily forgotten as they are found, for they mesh with the darkness that always pervades, and where there is darkness, there is no light. Where there is no light, there is nothing of any purpose, or worth.

The darkness is where you will find me.

So if you are a tom of an ash-colored pelt, who has lost all happiness with the death of his loved ones, you are grieving, my friend, like many others! If you are a kit that's been abandoned in snow, you are lost, but hope and compassion will guide one to you! If you are a she-cat with no where to belong, you will soon find purpose under the light of the sun!

And if all this fails, fate will be sealed, however unjustly, and bring you a land where there is light, where there is comfort, where there is relief, and if none of this pleases you, then you'll strive for more.

But you will not be alone.

And me, you ask?

I was like you. I used to think the world was simple, my decisions were mine to make, my destiny was what I made it to be, and even long after I should have accepted the truth to quench my restless disdain, I tried to prove these lies to others, and tried to change the meaning of fate to fit into the mold I created, but things are different. The truth is clear through this endless expanse of darkness.

It's hard to say whether or not I regret what I've become. I was looking for a life on which I could be bound by my own laws. I was offered a chance for it all to be turned around, but a spat upon that opportunity as if it had spoken disgrace. I wonder now if all along, I was being saved from the path I walk now. I cannot imagine it any other way, but I ask myself now an again that if it had been different, could I be trusted, could I be loved, could I be more than a memory of a memory? - an empty threat? - a sourceless scream?

I suppose the only reason I can't let myself regret all the things I've done...is so I can never find out.

**This story isn't going to have a consistent storyline, but it isn't just a collection of one-shots either. It's kind of in the middle, if you know what I mean. I should move on before I make this too complicated.**

**If you'd like, you can read my two chapter short story, The Lone Spirit, which gives a bit of an introduction on who Lonespirit is. Not everything from that story will be the same here, just as a warning.. Nightspirit has also done some work with Lonespirit, so again, check her out when you get the chance!**

**If this is something you enjoyed, leave a review! Constructive criticism is much appreciated!**

**~Destiny**


	2. 400 Years

**In my two-shot The Lone Spirit, it is stated that Lonespirit originated from WindClan, but this is not the actual case. I like thinking she's a rather ancient spirit that's been wandering the Unknown for centuries before the...I guess you could say "modern" times of the Clans? That's just something to clear up a bit of confusion with this chapter.**

**That being said, there are going to be other minor to major changes between my two works, and even some things done by The Spirit That Comes At Night. I thank everyone who has taken the time to read this story. It means a lot to me!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors or the Tribe of Looming Mist.**

400 Years

The sun had risen gloriously on a dry, but comfortable greenleaf morning, shedding upon the forest of the Tribe of Looming Mist a layer of soft golden light the stretched over the ancient trees and delicately warmed the flourishing ground under their waving branches. The sky was a pale blue by the time a young mottled kit raised her head from sleep, and blinked away the tiredness in her amber gaze.

"It's...it's today!" she exclaimed, leaping to her paws, and stirring the bracken in her nest. "Goodness, it's today!" She eagerly prodded at her littermates with a dainty white paw, urging them awake with the help of an unrhythmic, but all together joyful cheer.

The first to open his eyes was a dark brown tabby, whose blue gaze alighted with excitement once he managed to understood what exactly his energetic littermate was yammering on and on about. He immediately fell into the chant. The final kit, distinctly tortoiseshell, was far less expressive as she was awakened.

"Pardon me, my siblings, but as far as I'm concerned, morning means I sleep," she said roughly.

"Well, this morning has to be different, Dappled Leaf!" replied her sister.

"Yes, it _has_ to be!" agreed the brown tabby kit.

"Dappled Leaf, do you know what's happening today?" inquired the sister.

She rolled over on her back, revealing her pale belly. "Of course, Mottled Sky, but where are we going to get with over-exaggerating every exciting day that passes?" Dappled Leaf asked.

"Tell me you're joking," the brown tabby meowed, growing still. "This is undoubtedly the most anticipated, most wonderful, most amazing day of our entire lives so far! How can you not be as anxious as us?"

Dappled Leaf gave him a smirk. "I am anxious, though I remain collected. It rewards to be patient, Striped Mud," she murmured, before slowly rising to her paws.

A light purr rippled into a soft and quiet laugh from behind the three kits. Dappled Leaf tilted her head at her mother, Red Wing. "Always have been wise for your age," she remarked.

Mottled Sky jumped. "Can you believe it, mother? We are receiving our casts today!"

"I know! It seems like only yesterday that you three were mewling balls of fur, constantly pawing at me for milk," Red Wing reminisced. "Oh how you've grown! I cannot be happier however to see you become the strong cats you are."

Dappled Leaf relished in this, flexing her claws.

"And I cannot wait to see the paths that Floating Stone has chosen for you to walk," she went on. "The ceremony is later this morning. Please, my children, be well-groomed and prepared."

"I will," Dappled Leaf said proudly.

"So will we," Striped Mud chimed in, his soft voice hardly making an indent in the conversation.

The three left the nursery to sit out in the refreshing breeze that circulated through the camp. Dappled Leaf admired her own tortoiseshell fur as it rippled with golden light, letting her tail wave freely as if the branch of a great tree. Her siblings lay in the shade provided by the surrounding forest, excitedly discussing their future days of training.

"Don't you think that I'll be the greatest huntress ever?" Mottled Sky asked her brother, her voice as loud and vibrant as ever. "I'll be prowling through this forest with hunting tactics no cat has ever seen before."

_Yeah, right...'greatest'_...thought Dappled Leaf, as she stretched in the sunlight.

"Father told me that I would make the perfect guard!" exclaimed Striped Mud, kneading his paws into the ground restlessly. "I want to be just like him. He's so brave and strong."

"Why, thank you, son. I'm sure you'll have no problem." As he spoke, a large, muscular dark brown tabby tom padded up to the three kits, his amber eyes gleaming with pride and joy. A gray tom flanked him and watched as the kits went up to greet their father.

"Dark Stream!" Striped Mud called, rushing towards the tabby and touching his nose to a broad shoulder.

"Floating Stone has told me that the ceremony will commence just before sunhigh," Dark Stream told the kits.

"Who are you?" muttered Dappled Leaf from behind her siblings, staring at the gray tom.

Dark Stream's stern amber gaze landed on her. "Dappled Leaf, you may not speak unless spoken to. You know this. You must wait until you've received your cast."

"No, it's quite alright," replied the gray tom. "You all must be very anxious. I remember when I received my cast," remarked the gray tom. "It was one of the most nerve-racking experiences I've ever endured."

"This here is Calming Flame. He's training to be a hunter," introduced Dark Stream.

"Really?" Mottled Sky asked, turning to the gray tom with bright interest. "I want to be a huntress! What's it like? What's your most impressive kill? Do you battle off ferocious hawks? What about-"

"Well, hopefully, you'll get to see soon enough," Calming Flame said, a friendly smile on his face.

"We better be on our way," meowed Dark Stream. "I will see you three at the casting ceremony."

The kits said their goodbyes, and watched them head off. Dappled Leaf glowered after her father. His scolding of her made her fur prickle with irritation.

"He seemed nice," mewed Mottled Sky. "I guess I'll be training beside him soon. Oh, I just don't know how much longer I can wait!"

"I will be a guard," Dappled Leaf suddenly put in, straightening her back and rolling her shoulders back, as if to display herself like a prize.

For moment, her littermates made no response, then blinked their eyes nervously, exchanging a look of doubt.

"What?" challenged Dappled Leaf sharply, her intense blue gaze baring down upon then with suspicion.

"Well," meowed Striped Mud, waving his long tail reluctantly. "...Come on, Dappled Leaf, you know that she-cats are hardly ever casted as guards."

Mottled Sky nodded in agreement. "Look at mother, she's a huntress, and I'm perfectly built for agile movement, and colored for stealth." She fluffed out her dark brown fur, which looked to be smeared with the whiteness of clouds. "And you, well...you have to be really muscular to become a she-cat guard."

"Just because you can't be a guard, doesn't mean I can't!" hissed Dappled Leaf, hurt. "Look at me! _I'm_ muscular, _I_ have really nice claws! I sharpen them on stone every single _day_, you know!"

"We didn't mean to hurt your feelings," Striped Mud comforted, drawing closer to his sister. "We just want you to be realistic."

"You think I'm being ridiculous?" growled Dappled Leaf, turning her back to them.

"No!" Striped Mud said, "We, uh...we just-"

"We're just saying, keep an open mind," murmured Mottled Sky gently. "By some chance, you could be a guard, but, well..." she trailed off, looking at her brother sadly. He shrugged.

Dappled Leaf sighed heavily, saying nothing.

* * *

Like promised, the sun was just barely above the heads of the Tribe cats when a large, slate gray tom leaped upon a thick sycamore branch and called out for the camp to hear with a resounding yowl. Dappled Leaf padded after her siblings as they bolted for their place beside Red Wing and Dark Stream. A whispering congregation formed beneath the tree, and even though Dappled Leaf, strained to hear what they had to say, she could make out none of it. Her belly churned nervously.

_Get it together_, she told herself.

"This day, three kits shall be welcomed into the Tribe of Looming Mist with the reception of their casts," began Floating Stone, his hard, blue eyes looking over the cats of his Tribe. The children of Dark Stream, an honored guard, and Red Wing, a talented huntress are at this time, standing before me. Over the moons of their young-hood, I have determined the paths they shall travel as members of this Tribe.

"For her limber build and sharp eyes, I have determined that Mottled Sky shall follow the path of her mother in becoming a huntress," announced Floating Stone, and the Tribe cats responded with a ripple of purrs and sighs of approval. Red Wing beamed, laying her soft, motherly gaze on her daughter lovingly, before gazing back at the Tribe leader, who promptly continued the casting. "Striped Mud, for his sturdy paws, and broad shoulders, will take the route of a guard, like his respected father."

Tail-tips flicked and throats rumbled with the thrill of agreement. Dark Stream, at the front of the crowd, puffed out his chest proudly, watching Striped Mud with the same love that Red Wing had Mottled Sky. Dappled Leaf bit her tongue nervously, avoiding the gazes of her siblings as Floating Stone raised his tail for complete silence.

"And lastly, Dappled Leaf, for her quick instincts and sharp claws," he said, before a pause followed. Wait a moment, was there a pause? Or was her mind forming the suspense? In either case, it felt as if time had stretched for a million moons. Dappled Leaf closed her eyes tightly. The light had suddenly become overwhelming. _I am a guard, I am a guard..._

"I have determined that she too-"

_I am a guard, I am a guard..._

"-walk the path of a huntress." He finished finally, and that last string of words struck her in the chest with a resounding beat.

The voices of the Tribe members around her expressed their approval for the three casts with the chanting of their names. Mottled Sky and Striped Mud exchanged a look of excitement, the fur along the spine bristling with their endless energy.

"Oh, Dappled Leaf, is this not a momentous occasion?" she heard her mother exclaim behind her.

She whirled around, peeling her lips back. "No! No, it isn't!" It's not even close!"

Red Wing was taken aback, her bright eyes rounding with shock at her daughter's outburst. Before she had the chance to respond, Dark Stream cuffed Dappled Leaf's ear, a growl rising in his throat. "Watch your tone, child! You've not the right to speak out in such a distasteful manner!" he hissed angrily, forcing Dappled Leaf into a frightened crouch.

Mottled Sky and Striped Mud blinked at her sadly, but avoided her gaze when she tried to meet their eyes. Her siblings shifted their paws nervously.

Sweeping her view around the congregation, Dappled Leaf found that several cats near her were staring intensely her direction, including Floating Stone from where he stood at the center of it all. His slate gray fur reflected the light of the sun above, and his narrowed blue glare glinted with sternness. And in the silence that followed, Dappled Leaf felt something inside her snap.

Dappled Leaf straightened herself, attempting to appear as large and proud as an arrogant rogue. She rested her ears against the back of her head, and expanded her chest like she had when speaking to her littermates just that morning, but this time, she would not let doubt press her down again. Unsheathing her claws, she yowled, "Yeah, that's right! This is _not_ momentous, this is _not_ celebratory! I'll tell you what it is...it's a mistake!"

Several of the tribe cats gasped at her challenge. Many if them growled in her direction, and others snapped at her to silence her questioning. Mottled Sky backed up against Red Wing's flank, who held her surprised gawk she had possessed before. Striped Mud swept his tail over his face in embarrassment.

"A mistake! A bloody mistake!" she shrieked, ripping at the ground with her claws. As she stood seething in anger, holding the amazed gazes of the Tribe cats around her, she felt a pinch in her scruff before she was ripped off of her foundation, and carried, swinging carelessly in the tough jaws of her father. The dark brown tabby let a growl roll in his throat as he took her off and away from the crowd. Before being takeninto the nursery, Dappled Leaf took a final look at Floating Stone. The Tribe leader stood stiffly behind them, following her with his cold, suspicious gaze.

_I am a guard_! she thought at him bitterly.

Dark Stream dropped her in her nest, and pushed his dark countenance into hers. "Are you out of your mind, my child?" he screeched. "What in the name of the Tribe of Endless Hunting has caused you to act out in such a disgraceful way?"

"Disgraceful? Me?" hissed Dappled Leaf.

"I will be shocked to find that Floating Stone does not punish you harshly," he snarled. "And so I thought that you had been so familiar with Tribe Law! Speaking out disrespectfully, mindlessly as you had this day will not go overlooked."

"I am a guard!" she yowled, waving her tail back and forth.

The dark brown tabby stretched his eyes wide. "Tell me that is not what this is about!" He cuffed her again, and she felt a brief sting as his claw tore into her ear, sending a drop of blood to stain her claw crimson red. "It is the job of our leader, Floating Stone to choose the paths the future of this Tribe shall walk. You know this, Dappled Leaf! Enough of your foolishness!"

"He's made a dreadful mistake," growled Dappled Leaf. "I should be the one to decide what I do, and I want to be a guard!"

"Please, you think you know what's best for yourself? Look at the mess you've gotten yourself in to," snarled Dark Stream sourly. "Now that's it, I do not want to hear you speak for the rest of the day. I need to go outside now and clean up the embarrassment you caused this whole family, and find out the punishment you shall serve for this indiscretion." With a final flick of his tail, he spun around and slipped out of the den.

The gaze that followed him out was cold, but rage burned in her chest like an uncontainable fire. _Is this what a hunter is meant to do? _She thought, before attacking her own nest, ripping at the bracken savagely and hissing and foaming as if it were an enemy. "You don't know a thing about me!"

When all was settled, and her angry, heaving breaths had slowed, Dappled Leaf curled up in her nest, resting her tail-tip over her nose, and staring into her dark fur. The words of her father had struck deep into her flesh, coursing through her veins until every inch of her body ached with feverish indignance. She whispered what he had said to her in a quiet growl. The words rose and fell with the rhythm of her breathing, and she realized with an exhausted sigh how erratic she had been.

_I am not a fool. I am not a hunter. I am a guard, and I deserve to have made that decision for myself. They should have let me! I've been nothing but respectful to these Tribe members, unlike my narrowed-minded littermates. _

She felt herself drifting, the world around her slowly vanishing piece by piece, until there was nothing left but her echoing thoughts.

_Well, if they cannot see that, then they are the fools. Only I can decide who I am. I won't be controlled by this Law. _

_They'll see how poorly it does at containing me._

**A lot of dialogue, this chapter, and it's needless to say that I'm not the best at pacing it. This chapter just had a lot of...stuff...crammed into under 3000 words, and it wasn't really all interesting to work of the transitions, and convey what I needed to for any proper foreshadowing. Plus, I feel that it was just one thing after the next, after the next...ugh...so that's why I didn't get it out sooner. I hope to get the next chapter out sometime in the next couple weeks, but life is still crazy, so bare with me. I know this is a lot to grasp on to, and it's way different than my other stories, but I hope you'll give it a chance and keep reading! Thank you, and remember to review!**

**~Destiny**


	3. The Insider

**Thank you so much, those who have reviewed! I hope you enjoy this chapter! And fun fact: If Lonespirit were human, or aware of the philosophies of Primal Man, she would be anti-deterministic and most likely support the ideas of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. You know, the kind of girl to often act irrationally as a way to prove to herself that she was free will. Kinda what a lot of teenagers do. XD. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Warriors**

The Insider

The tyrants you look up to with a blind form of respect have many times in my early aimlessness come face to face to with me when they thought my abandonment was a matter of complete disappearance. In actuality, I'd had plans of returning the moment I spat shame upon their purpose, for I was not going to let their follies go unpunished. I was, after all, too far gone at that point to begin again, and for that reason, I would not let another fall into their control.

I did everything in my ability to stop these poor souls from falling so helplessly into to grip of fate's most recognizable dictators, even if that meant ripping them from the universe they thought they knew, but for those things, I bear no remorse. After all, I know what it feels like to die twice.

But do you have any grasp of how difficult it is to lead so many away from the eyes that can see nearly everything on the outside? - to tear a set of paws from a path that they can no longer control? - so far from what is known that even I have yet to travel there?

The journey to those places takes so much more than to walk.

I digress, however. And I would look into their eyes, their poor, confused eyes, and feel what many are led to believe cannot flourish in a heart so much like mine. These are cats that can so easily fall into despair, knowing that there really are no second chances the way they would like it to be. How far these second chances would go! They would see their family again, they would have a shot of love, they would relive the satisfying moments bringing them to the glory and accomplishment of a hero! Imagine the progression of this world if every cat got a taste of triumph! A taste of redemption!

But these things, cannot be. And it is the work of the tyrants that make it so.

I know how all of that feels, and you believe that I am incapable of sympathy?

But unfortunately, that could not go far enough.

There was only so much I could manage to do on the outside. My hooked claws, my sharp tongue, my sheer determination, it all came together as a powerful force, but I could not penetrate the surface. It was necessary that my approach shifted. Perhaps, my thinking was, I could give them all a second chance, before their first was lost.

This led my paws to, for once in many seasons, wind out of the darkness that surrounded my actions and into the light of the waking world, where the wind, the sun, the water, the sky, worked presently and thoughtfully from the sheerness of one conscious moment to the limitless expanse of the past stretching from the previous breath to the beginning to time. What a rush it brought to me to effortlessly yet remarkably pass between the barrier of these worlds, especially coming to only be aware of the reality that I could not dream of having a grasp of before.

The feeling of my paws on solid ground and my fur in brisk and refreshing breezes was like a reminder of the simplistic perfection I'd been torn from so long ago. I refused in those moments to peel apart from it all like many bearing my former namesake would do. I could not help but express my scorn to the great trees around me, exclaiming to them, "Can you believe the entitlement they must hold their narcissistic selves to, in order to feel nothing about you, and deny your humbling grandeur?"

The trees, though, would not listen, and foolish I felt to speak ill in their presence.

Alone I felt to have need to turn to them for my thought.

My goal, as I said, was to lead others from a predetermined destiny, leaving no vulnerable soul dictated by the world beyond the stars you see. I wished to do so before they were to even realize that they were being watched and threatened by the paw of Fate. A lone wanderer would do no good. Their lack of dedication surely obstructs their view of any danger that surrounds them. My voice within their heads would be meaningless. To accomplish what I desired, and help those I saw to be in need of it, I searched for an object whose eyes could be opened to the ghosts that lingered hungrily in the reality they understand. I could uproot an poor, oblivious cat from their bindings, and the perfect cat to work with, the cat truly in need of guidance, would be one gripped by the law of society, as I had been many years ago.

Their voices were meek and worthless beside the echoes of control that wore away at the walls of their own beliefs. They needed a conquerer, a challenger, to strengthen the force of their own decision. The first of these pitiful cats I came across was a follower of a powerful gray tabby, Rylan. Do you see what I find wrong here? I know the first of my hosts by the one he appeases, not by himself.

He said to his leader - the very first words I heard him speak -, "With all due respect, Rylan, I must ask; Don't you think that it might be unwise for me to lead such a large group of Defenders to Apollo's borders?"

From where I stood, among the tendrils around their base, the sunlight seemed to pass negligently over my host, and instead found glorious rest upon the head of the gray tabby called Rylan. He was well-muscled, broad-shouldered, long-legged, and bore every indication of leadership down to the piercing intentness of his crisp green gaze. I felt immediate dislike for the tom.

His voice was deep and savory when he spoke. "Tell me, young Defender, why_ you_ would find such a concept unwise?"

"To put it simply," murmured my host timidly, "Being at such high risk for battle, too many of your own approaching Apollo, whom we know to be hostile and suspicious of all, would very easily lead him to believe that they are being threatened."

Rylan smiled. "This is why you are a mere Defender, and nothing more. You have little understanding of the goal, which is to intimidate the foul Apollo."

"I had thought that the intention was to avoid war."

"It is, my young follower." Rylan circled the one called Defender a few times, before stopping in his tracks and looking up the sunlight that rained gently down upon him. From within his shadow, my host let his gaze fall to the ground. "But though major conflict is to be put off for perhaps another day, the cats of Apollo, and the wretched tom himself, shall know that we are the superlative within this territory."

"But sir, do you not think that-"

"Silence!" snapped Rylan suddenly, his smooth and attractive voice hardening into something far darker. "My orders, and my orders only are the ones you are to follow. Therefore, you will take the cats I assign, and no less!"

I felt a quiet growl roughly tumble in my throat upon hearing these words. My thoughts race with undeniable anger. _You dare to trap the poor soul in the encasement of your demands, with no consideration of what he may see to right in his own eyes?_ My gaze fell upon a scar at the side of my host's face, a scar that was clearly earned through obedient action. _He has fought for you, and you dismiss what he offers to better the life of your Defenders. _

"Yes, Rylan," growled my host, his gaze angled submissively at the ground. I watched as he studied the unsheathed claws of his leader, and silence ensued for several moments before he continued. "I will take those you see fit."

"You see fit?" I echoed from where I stood. "Your leader is a fool, and young tom, you know it clearly just as much as I." I crawled out from the tendrils with an arched back, letting the thorns scrape my flank. The stinging that flared across my flesh was refreshing in a strange way I do not know how to describe. All I know is that the uncaring ferocity of nature struck a remembrance in my mind that I had not felt in a long time. I approached the two toms, speaking words that reached not their ears. "The fear you cause is intentional and manipulative, and your followers must disregard what they believe is right to please you. In return, you give nothing but more fear."

I stood behind my host at this point, staring past him and into the gaze of Rylan. He was unknowingly dared by my intent observance to reply. "Yes, Ettore. Thank you."

"Ettore," I whispered, allowing Rylan to turn away from my attention. I lingered behind the follower, repeating his name in a lower murmur. His pelt was dusty brown, with tabby stripes that faded into the obscurity of the rest of his fur. "I believe, young tom, that your namesake bears loyalty as it's meaning? Not that you would be aware."

He heard not a word that I said, simply stared after his leader with a rather frustrated glimmer in his amber eyes.

I wrapped my tail over his shoulders, my the ends of my mouth curling slightly upward. He flinched under my touch, and the fur along his spine bristled. "I do not have a name any longer. It has been lost in the track of my aimless journey to find you. Do you mind if we share?"

He widened his eyes and whirled around to glare directly into my face, but he saw nothing of me. I let my tail fall limply behind me again, and circled around to his front.

"Greetings, my dear puppet, Ettore."

And what an excellent puppet he was!

I viewed his world through his own youthful green eyes, I felt the rise and fall of his breathing, slowing in his few moments of contentment and quickening in his far more common resentment. I spoke to him as his own inquiring voice, and his thoughts replied to me openly.

_What do you wish to be, Ettore? _

_I wish to be respected by my fellow Defenders._

_Are you not, Ettore? _

_We are only to respect Rylan. _

_Is Rylan worthy of respect, Ettore?_

_Not as long as he believes he is. _

This I grinned at. Independent of his understanding, I felt warmth flare in my chest.

_Very well, Ettore, may he come to know this_.

The more I came to know of this place, the more trapped I began to feel. It began with the knowledge that under Rylan, Ettore and those like him went about knowing themselves as not simply Defenders, but also as Servers. Rylan would call his followers one of these two things, and I realized that these titles held no honor. They defended, not the society, but Rylan. They served, not each other, but Rylan. They could favor no other, but Rylan. Apollo was the opposer of this dictator, leading a surprisingly small group of cats and fighting to regain territory that Rylan had taken from them over the seasons. He oppressed the whole forest!

It would not be the first time that I came into contact with such a leader. I have known in my time, cats undeserving of the respect they demanded, living and dead. All seemed to have one thing in common; each believed that they had the right to choose destiny, who one is, where one belongs. Rylan was no imbecile that I hadn't come face to face with prior to meeting Ettore, he was no wiser, and no stronger, but all the same unjust. And the scars still left imprinted by the bindings of cruel fate became inflamed when I saw the dark gray tabby with his head held high, or heard is falsely smooth and gregarious purr. I would feel Ettore's frustration just as well as mine, while I observed the two in discussion, before putting my mind to work in unison with his. What I had, and what he lacked, was the drive, and passion, and the dedication to escape the rapidly approaching shadows upon his vulnerable self. When I felt that I had come to understand the ways of his society, I decided: he shall receive what he wants!

_You should not allow this fool to choose your values_, I told Ettore once, in the peace of his slumber._ He is using your strength, your skill, and your mind for his own gain._ I tugged at the strings of my puppet. _Let yourself to know these words as your own! And let him hear them as such. _

When he awoke that morning, I guided his paw steps to Rylan's great den, where I told him to speak, and so Ettore did.

"Rylan, Apollo's cats have moved further along the eastern border," he revealed, "And I believe that it is best that we should allow them."

The dark gray tabby chortled, his falsely charming voice rippling with the force of lies and deception. My ears heard through the pressing echoes. "We should not. Apollo cannot have this land. The prey is returning soon, and our group needs the food to grow immensely over these coming warm seasons."

"Really?" Ettore asked, lifting a lip to show a long white fang. "I was unaware that you thought this to be our group. You have taught me nothing but that we belong to you, have you not?"

"I have," Rylan growled, a single angled ear indicating that he had noticed the hostility. "And because you belong to me, you will follow through in my orders to drive them back again."

"I must ask, Rylan, my leader, do you truly know the best for these cats?" Ettore questioned.

"Unsheathe your claws!" I ordered. "You shall not fear this wretch for any longer! You shall be respected, as you desire!"

Ettore did.

"I know exactly what is best for these cats," responded Rylan, his voice wavering coldly. "What is best is that we do not let Apollo and his pack of fools to advance further in our territory. The prey belongs to us, and we need it as well! Do you see the ribs that show through the pelts of my Defenders?"

"Perhaps, Rylan, we are hungry because we spend far too much time watching over our borders than hunting," growled Ettore, his gaze falling.

"Lift your eyes!" I barked.

"And look what is to happen if we do not. We will only grow hungrier if we do not stop Apollo's advancements," snapped Rylan. He raised his boldly striped tail. "Do not ever speak as if you know what is best for yourself and the other Defenders. Having any cat other than me as leader would bring us to the threshold of doom."

His words pinched a nerve within me, and Ettore jolted. "So that means we do not deserve to be treated with any form of dignity?" challenged my puppet. A moment passed, and he was shocked at himself.

Rylan was taken aback just as well. "Dignity? You think that you are deprived of dignity? You have the honor of serving me, and the reward of vast territory and protection! Now, silence, you ungrateful, narrow-minded Defender!" He spoke gruffly and bitterly, and his voice emitted a wavelength of true offense.

My puppet slowly sat down, glaring carefully into the eyes of his angered leader. "That is what we receive in return for the work we do on a daily basis, that more often than not contradicts reason and appeals to your self-deluded values. But it is not worth the fact that we are closed off from our own beliefs and desires."

Rylan's face gradually contorted into a cruel smile. "Oh? And what would your desires be, young Ettore?"

I leaned forward, willing him to reply with the thoughts that I had witnessed circulating in his mind. "That would be, sir, to be treated as your equal. To not be commanded at, but guided. To not be manipulated, but truthfully spoken to. To not be dismissed, but considered. And if, sir, you were to ask the others who live under your rule, I am certain that they share these desires of mine."

"Truly?" asked Rylan, furrowing his brow. His tail grew stiff, and his paws shifted.

"Truly," Ettore confirmed, looking directly at his leader.

I circled Rylan, and though I could not be seen, I suspected that he somehow knew of my being there. His gaze flickered from side to side, and his ears continuously angled back and forth between the den walls and my puppet in front of him. His claws, which had been naturally out, now sheathed, and he stepped forward. "If you are so very certain," he steadily growled. "Then, you would be fine with me asking the rest of the Clan how they feel as well? Perhaps they can also give me insight on what to do about Apollo's group..."

"That would be..."

"That would be...?

"...Fine," murmured Ettore.

"Perfect." Rylan walked past his follower and out of his den, a loud yowl surging powerfully across camp as he left.

_You will be respected!_ I assured my Ettore. _You will have what you desire!_

_I will have what I desire_.

Upon hearing the caterwaul that Rylan emitted, the cats that laid about the camp, looked forward fearfully, exchanging glances of worry. Ettore was beckoned by his leader to sit beside him at the center of the camp while slowly and nervously the society gathered.

"Defenders and Servers," addressed Rylan confidently, drawing closer to my puppet. I wrapped my tail over his shoulders protectively. "I have called you to stand before me this morning by the request of the Defender you know as Ettore."

Several cats dipped their heads at my puppet, not out of the respect I promised, but as a response to the words of their leader.

"He has told me just now that he feels that we should allow Apollo's forces to advance further in from the eastern border," Rylan continued smoothly. "Tell me, my loyal followers, do you find this to make sense?"

A collective murmur swept across the congregation. Nothing was said outright.

"Has it not been Apollo who has long been a threat and a rival to us? A competitor for our resources which we need so much?" Rylan indicated to a ginger she-cat close to him, who was the smallest, and frailest looking cat in the group. He flicked his tail at her.

"It has been," she replied timidly, her gaze at her dainty and delicate white paws.

I bared my teeth angrily at her, and Ettore mirrored me.

"Of course it has been!" Rylan exclaimed. He looked over at Ettore with a smug glint in his mischievous amber orbs. "The warmer seasons are coming after all. It would be simply foolish to give Apollo any sort of advantage when he and his pathetic cats had been nothing but a menace to us for many moons!"

"Yes, sir," were the fearful whispers that lightly bounced across the gathering. Ettore flattened his ears against his tabby-striped head.

"Speak. You will be respected!" I snapped into his ear.

"But-" my puppet broke in. "What threat is he to us in actuality? We have taken so much from him and his cats that he has not even a third of the numbers and land that we do!"

No one spoke, so Rylan replied, "Why give in the opportunity to rise again?"

Silence, until the dark gray tabby tom turned his gaze upon his cats. It was then that a rushed, panicked ripple of whispers and mewls dispersed the the sparks of a dangerous fire. "Fear is imprisonment!" I hissed viciously, but Ettore had not the time to repeat what I had said.

"Aside from that, young Ettore believes that I manipulate, deceive, command, oppress the likes of you all. Do any of you agree with this statement?"

The frail ginger she-cat shrunk down to her paws. "We do not."

I snarled in her direction, slithering my way up to her small, terrified frame. "You are dooming one who shares in your pain!" I snapped, but she could not hear me. Ettore, and Ettore alone was my puppet.

_Ettore alone_.

"Is that so?" asked Rylan innocently, casting a dark glance to the dusty brown tom. "You had said you were so sure that these cats would take your side! That seems not to be the case. Is it you instead who wishes to manipulate, deceive, command, and oppress?"

"I wish to...liberate..." he murmured dejectedly.

"'Liberate'? You want to free them from the protection I provide for them? You would only be thrusting them into grave danger. Surely there are greater threats out there than even Apollo. Larger societies, migrating two-legged creatures, adders, eagles, wolves, and cougars?" Rylan looked above Ettore, forcing him to his belly with his intense amber stare. "Truly you are an enemy to us, if that is what your intention is."

"No! I...want to...I want to..."

"I shall pay no mind to what you want," hissed Rylan. "As your leader, I know what is best for my cats." His claws unsheathed again intro the tangled grass. "We do not need traitors."

He struck Ettore across the muzzle, sending the young tom sprawling to the side. I watched in horror as the congregation backed away to make space for the abuse, shakily bowing to the great dark tom in the center of it all.

"Fight!" I screeched, "Fight!"

Ettore struggled to get to his paws as Rylan advanced again, his fangs reflecting the distant, uncaring light of the sun, which shone upon him and passed over my host. The leader struck again, this time in the shoulder. Ettore hissed in agony as several droplets of blood stained his face. Rylan had him pinned at this point.

I felt the heat of my fury course through every inch of my body down to the ends of my claws that were useless against Rylan.

Ettore used his hind hind legs to relieve some of the weight of the attacker, and slipped away, only to be bowled over once again. The struggling toms rolled within the circle, clawing blindly at each other. The ginger she-cat peeled her weak gaze from the battle, her soft countenance twisting into a painful grimace at the sight.

Rylan raked his claws down Ettore's belly in one of the few brief moments that the latter had the advantage, sending a spray of blood across the field and staining the ground an ugly, sickening crimson. Ettore cried out, his agony echoing across the suffocating forest around. An ill feeling settled in my belly.

_I am sorry, Ettore, but you must be alone. It is the only way._

I pulled away from my puppet, the bindings breaking with a rush through my fur. Ettore's gaze bulged as I freed him from my grip.

Quickly, I rammed into Rylan from the side, shocking him with my force that no other living cat could match. He stumbled into the bowed cats around him.

"Ettore, run."

He could not longer hear me; his thoughts were his own, but he knew that it was dangerous to stay where he was. The first of my hosts rose to his paws with the remaining strength he had, and limped desperately towards the camp exit. He vanished through the tendrils, and I never saw him again.

Rylan stood up, supported by his fearful Defenders. He followed Ettore with his amber glare, but did not go after him. I turned to the trees.

"It is cats like him that destroy all second chances," I said solemnly.

The trees did not reply.

**Thank you for reading! I know it was a long one, but I hope you enjoyed it! Remember to review!**

**~Destiny **


	4. Long Ago

**Nothing much to say right about now, just wanna briefly thank everyone who has reviewed! Here's the next chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors**

Long Ago

What could I say about my world that I have not said already? How does one describe nothingness in its near entirety? I am a traveler through an orbicular scope of darkness and vacancy. Every dimensional tunnel leading to a new domain, whether it be the waking world or one of the endless spirit-built wonderlands, is random and ever changing. There are no directions; there are no pathways; there are only the cold, inescapable brushes down my spine that alert me when I pass between these worlds.

There are the situations in which my legs tense with fear and turn away from the approaching borders, but this is few and far between. Most times, my mind is too far gone within itself to notice when I have set paw across a new barrier. It takes only the prompting of an outside force to bring me back and show me what I had absent-mindedly brought myself into. More often than not, I had not been met with a welcoming power, and I am lucky to have once been so quick on my paws.

Also, walking in a straight line is pointless, because there is no ultimate destination to reach here. Everything that I have passed by circles around again at some instance, faster than I can move on my own.

So no matter what I do, there is truly no liberation from the past, a lesson that I learned first when I had given up my vengeful path. It was a difficult lesson just as well, realizing with a heavy heart that I was a meaningless tortoiseshell mass that just simply drifted through history, without any weight under my paws; it was something that threw my entire understanding of my place from its roots, making me realize that I was not only a lone traveler, but a lone _prisoner_, who would never be able to escape her drawn out nightmare, and who no one would even care to keep an eye on.

I walked, as I always do, in search of nothing and without a sound purpose, through a thick, turbid darkness that served as the ground that I walked, the air that I breathed, and the life that I lived. All danger still left concealed, I carried my unconscientious spirit towards a familiar place, which my regrets made an enemy.

Oh, yes, I _felt_ the pressure closing in on me, the heat that usually remained absent between realms pressing further into my ragged pelt. I _saw_ the hints of lights get more frequent and more intense. I _heard_ the voices telling me to walk away, the anger and disgust swirling around my ears like a storm cloud on thick and gloomy night, but I was a fool. My vows of no return echoed in the back of my head, reverberating sharply against the walls of my mind, but what pain could be felt by a spirit who's been numbed for so long already?

Something shifted in the distance. It was small band of color, bulging ever so slightly as it began to melt away from the darkness. At the sign of movement apart from my own, my paw steps stopped, and I let out a heavy breath of discomfort. Yielding was like hitting a solid wall of stone, rough and cold. I felt the air catch in my throat, and the ice settle in my veins as my halt steadied. Slowly, a figure began to grow visible.

She was short and slight, with a slender build that perfectly complimented her still wild and soft pelt. Her eyes were round, bright, and youthful, but in their amber waters I saw the emergence of wisdom and thought as she studied me.

My pelt bristled with hostility. A dull golden light, though hardly noticeable, was a sure sign.

"An apprentice," I heard myself rasp, though I didn't remember telling my tongue to speak. "You are the next apprentice!"

I tried to walk away, turn over my shoulder and escape the danger I had unknowingly placed myself in, but when I stop my continuous movement, it is difficult to start again. My mind forgets in the blink of an eye what I had been absently doing for moons at a time. I was frozen in place, forced to watch as she approached. He scent of curiosity wafted closer.

"Stop in your tracks!" I yelped hoarsely, but my voice was far too quiet to be carried to her ears. "Leave me alone!"

The apprentice kept walking, tilting her head as if straining to hear what was saying still many tree-lengths away from her.

"I said sto-" My words caught deep in my throat and a rush of dry agony spread through my chest and esophagus. I arched my spine, a chill running through my pelt. My gaze clouded for a moment as a struggled to cough up the words that were still trapped within me. "Plea...please...st...stop..."

She was a mere dozen fox-length from me by the time she finally halted, dainty paws gracefully landing upon the darkness. She stared at me for a long time, watching me as I recovered from my bout, and then she spoke, with a voice so disgustingly smooth and clear that it alone could force my claws out. "Are you alright?"

I bared my teeth. "Just help me to my paws and go away, you gutless fool," I growled, my animosity building quickly.

She was seemingly unfazed by my words as she went to support my shoulder with her own. It took a few tries, but she managed to help me steady myself successfully. "I would offer to bring you to your spirit realm, but it seems like you have been dead for quite a while."

I laughed bitterly. "Well, you're right about one thing." I slowly spun away from her, contemplating which paw I should lift first. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, leave me be and run on back to your men...tor..." I trailed off into a silence.

I felt her interest spike, like a dagger to my eye. "So you do know who I am? That means that you've been here before. Strange that I've never seen you. Are you supposed to be behind your borders?"

"Who knows where I am 'supposed' to be? Now would you be quiet? I need to concentrate." I shifted my weight back and forth, studying my forepaws.

"Are you sure that you don't need anymore help? I'd be more than happy to lead you out of here...You don't seem comfortable."

"Really? How'd you _guess_," I snarled, snapping my neck around to glare at her in the face. Her amber eyes danced with color, and I suddenly felt a pull in my heart.

"Please, allow me," she meowed. Before I could protest, she was brushing against my shoulder, and looking at me expectantly. "Just lean on me, and I'll take you back to where you need to go."

"Really..." I growled, and a piercing feeling of suspicion pressed into my pelt, making my fur stand on end.

"Of course," she meowed politely. "I am a Messenger of the Unknown. Well, I will be anyway. It's my duty to lead cats to their afterlife realms, and it seems that you are quite far from yours."

"Yes, you _are_ to be one of them." I leaped back, arching my back. There had to be a reason that she was being to pleasant in spite of my obvious disdain towards her. It just had to be a trick, and this apprentice was taking me to the Messengers, to be executed, or sent far beyond the circulating boundaries of the Unknown. I narrowed my eyes at her confused expression. "You play a smart game, but I'm not participating, apprentice."

"What are you...I'm just trying to help. You're clearly lost, or confused, or both. I have to take you back," she murmured.

I glared, grinding my teeth wrathfully. _She has to know who I am,_ I thought_. It's far too strange that she doesn't_.

Before I realized, my weak mind had taken me from my focus on her, and drove me to concentrate on a light glimmering coldly in the distance. My paws started their absent movement, and I pushed past the apprentice without a thought. I felt the pressure of what has been around me lifting off from my bones.

"Are you okay?" The voice sounded world's away, no stronger than a breath in the raging, cluttered storm in my head. I paid no attention, until I felt a burning sensation in my tail. With dizzying speed, I whirled around, escaping the fog once more, and staring into the amber eyes of the apprentice.

"_What are you doing_?" I snapped madly, making her flinch.

"Trying to help you, and I won't stop until you let me," she hissed, irritated.

A cold and bitter laugh rolled off my tongue as she began to walk beside me. "You aren't going to let off, are you?"

"No," she meowed bluntly.

"Why do you take so much interest in a loner like me?" I asked her roughly, observing her clean and smooth movements.

"When my mentor finds out that I guided a spirit all on my own, perhaps he'll give me my full name," she whispered excitedly. "It feels like it has been a long time since I began my training, but he is so reluctant to give me any assessments. So maybe, he doesn't need to."

"You're awfully open about this Messenger stuff," I grumbled. "And don't get your hopes up. That's not how it works."

"How would you know?" she asked.

"Well...you aren't the first - or fourth - Messenger I've come across." I felt the scar on my throat sting as I spoke. "You _pick up_ on things...and you, apprentice, ought to be a bit more vague with your issues. You sure wouldn't want this information falling into the wrong paws."

"Oh, I see," she murmured, suspicion crawling into her voice. "I'm...I'm trying to figure out where you belong. My foresight is still a bit blurry...where are you supposed to be?"

"I've already told you, who knows?"

"Well I thought you were just giving me the cold shoulder," she responded, starting to get annoyed.

"You're as dense as your mentor," I snarled.

Her paw steps ceased, and I faced her angrily. "Just run on back to poor old Stormspirit and leave me be. I don't need to deal with thick-headed, cowardly swine such as yourself. I've had enough of that to match hundreds of lifetimes."

Finally, I saw the pieces begin to fall into place in her shocked countenance, which flickered with understanding and reflected a familiar look of betrayal. Her claws unsheathed. "I...I know you!" she exclaimed with a gasp.

"Do you now?" I sneered.

Her eyes glowed, ano her fur ruffled in an unseen wind. She spoke with a forceful voice that pounded into my bones forcefully, _You are the tortoiseshell cat that many are disgusted to speak the name of..._

I stepped back, gazing in horror as the power she was building as a messenger apprentice emitted from her being. Boldly, furiously I screeched above the volume of her shouts, "It took you long enough to figure it out, you blind and detestable weakling!"

"I am Owlpaw," she growled, "And as the Messenger of Unknown one day, I will be addressed as such." Her eyes darkened, and her voice lowered to its normal sound. "I had never gotten to see you myself. Apparently I was still alive and mad when you were last seen by my kind."

"Consider yourself lucky," I purred. "It had been a bloodbath. I'm not sure your puny little heart would have been able to handle it. Would you be a good little apprentice and return to your horrible realm to be brainwashed some more? It's about time that I be left alone."

Owlpaw glared with her amber eyes into my snarling face. "You're a danger to the Messengers and all who may cross your path. I can't let you go." She crouched.

"This a game you won't-"

I hadn't the chance to finish before she collided with me, sending me crashing down onto my back, my paws flailing in the air. I struck her jaw in a blind struggle to get to my paws, and she reeled back, hissing.

"Don't forget that a long time ago, I was in your place. I will fight you for days if I must," I growled threateningly.

"Oh, too bad that you lost your forsaken mind in the middle of it." Owlpaw cracked her jaw, and revealed her perfect, sharp teeth. She lunged, gripping my shoulder with a strong, deep bite. A curse rumbled in my throat as I rolled over, pressing all of my weight into her chest. Then, I found my footing once more and tossed her over my head, slamming onto into the ground at my forepaws. I raked my paws down her face, and she let out a cry of agony.

"Had enough already?" I jeered.

"Not even close. I'm still fighting for the cat whose trust you mercilessly betrayed." She sank her teeth into my foreleg and wrapped her hind paws around my own, firmly enough that I couldn't shake her away, and ended up collapsing onto my nose. "He'll never forgive what you've done."

Her claws pressed deeper and deeper into my chest, with my pinned back on my shoulders. "I. Don't. _Care_!" I felt heat and fire coarse through my blood, and from the shifting in Owlpaw's weight, I knew that she felt it too. I leaped up, shoving her onto her curved spine so she rolled back and and landed on her paws again. We circled each other, now, daring one other to make the next move. "He's dead to me anyway. They're all dead to me! Every cat who was dumb enough to succumb to their will is dead to me!" I felt stinging tears in my eyes that burned my face and blurred my vision as she crawled forward.

"The feeling is mutual, Dapplespirit," I heard her growl.

I convulsed with rage, feeling a red hot intensity choking my breathing as I released a blood-curdling shriek and dove towards Owlpaw, my paws ripping down her flank, and threatening to tear through her esophagus, and they would have, had she not dodged just at the right moment, sending me sprawling forward. The next thing I felt was her weight crashing into my side and pounding me down on the cold, dark floor.

Blinking, my vision cleared of the blood mist that had been distorting my sight and turning everything move I made into a blind wrath. I saw Owlpaw standing above me, her Amber gaze bearing down upon me. She whispered, "You're sickening...you're pathetic."

But to my surprise, she let me get to my paws. I waited for her to deliver the next blow, to claw my face or rip the fur from my shoulders, but she just stood there, watching me as I found steady ground.

"Well?" I snapped.

"And," she hissed, "You're not worth my time. As far as I can tell, you'll just die off like an ancient star in space, the way you see me, and all the Messengers." She stepped back, "You made the biggest mistake of your existence by abandoning him, by abandoning _us_."

"I know," I whispered. "I know..."

I turned away, vanishing hastily into the murky blackness. Her voice echoed in the atmosphere around me, following my every step like a vengeful hatred.

_Your treachery will be remembered here._

_You are to be forgotten._

**Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you have a lovely summer break, and please DO NOT FORGET TO REVIEW! :D**

**~Destiny**_. _


	5. The Addiction

**Thanks to those who have reviewed. Please, if you read, say something. It means a lot! This chapter is going to be released in two chapters, because it's quite a lot. This is part 1. I know it's really long. Part 2, I hope will be a lot shorter. In case you were wondering why it took 5 months to finish it, whelp, I hope it speaks for itself. **

**I got a DeviantArt a while back too. I'm not much of an artist, but if you want to check it out, the link is on my profile. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors**

The Addiction

Ettore was the first.

Somehow, when I watched him escape the circle of punishment that I had shoved him into, the digging of claws into my heart hadn't been enough to tell me to give up right then and there. My paws still stood on solid ground, and I still did not restrict myself from feeling the refreshing winds of a living, breathing world. If anything, Ettore showed me that there lived cats out there bound by chains that even I had not been gripped by myself, even though I knew that they were all strapped to the same walls. There were cats out there who were suffering through thousands of different conflicts built by the claws of fate, and none of them were being helped like they should have.

And I was determined to find them.

It was pointless to begin where I was. The followers of Rylan were pitiful and worthless to not feel a spark of defiance in their puny beings at the oppression that had taken place right before their clouded eyes. And seeing the disgusting, smug look on the filthy gray tabby's face once Ettore had left sickened me to my core. I would need to start somewhere new, where society itself was built upon an entirely different foundation. And who would I be to only pay mind to the lowest of the low? With power does not necessarily come satisfaction (nor honor for that matter).

This guidance brought me to a cliffside against a churning water body, larger than I have seen before and since. It never found rest, but only grew, especially in powerful wind, and under heavy gray cloud cover. A community of cats resided in the series of caves and ledges that had formed along the mountainous cliffs, and upon my observations, I found that they were led by two ultimate rulers, Kalan and Moselle, referred to by their underlings as the King and Queen.

I noticed that for the most part, these two rulers were decent to their subjects, letting them all eat a fair amount, and accepting their courteous acts free of any lustful desires for grand worship, but if there was one thing that brushed down my spine the wrong direction, it was the fact that some cats received more privileges than others. A selected few were free of all duty, while the rest spent hours in the daylight training harshly and hunting in the blazing heat, but Rylan's appallingly smooth voice still echoed in my head, and I decided that it would be the wrong choice to assist one of these cats. I needed to dig deeper, and I found my answer under the gleaming moon one night.

Two cats were sitting together on a secluded ledge adjacent to the cave of the King and Queen, resting on each other's shoulders and watching as the stars danced along the surface of the water. Peaceful silence hovered between them for many moments as I watched before one of the two, a blue-gray tomcat spoke.

"Listen, I think that we should talk..."

The second, a black she-cat with a curious mark between her amber eyes, looked up at him.

"I don't feel that it's right to be together, if all that we know is fear."

I narrowed my eyes and crept closer.

"What do you mean by that, Saph?" she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder.

"We have been mates for quite a long time," he rumbled quietly, "And through everything that we've done together, we spent many nights flinching at every sound and hiding behind the rocks."

"I feel that it's worth it..." the black she-cat meowed quietly.

He shifted uneasily, and I could feel the tension that slid through his veins. "Now, perhaps, it is, but have you thought ahead? What if we are seen together in the next couple of moons or so. Would it have been 'worth it' by then?"

"Of course!" she replied, with her tone slightly biting.

"Do you even know the consequences that could result from this?" the one called Saph asked her, widening his blue eyes and pressing for an answer with the intensity of his gaze.

"Well...they couldn't be that bad..." she whispered. "It's not like I'm with an enemy tom cat."

"Opaque..." he sighed. "I get the feeling that somehow, I'm worse than some outlander."

I nodded. At this moment, I was sitting right behind them, my head practically resting on their tense shoulders. Saph stared at his mate sympathetically despite the harshness of his words, while she studied her paws as she rubbed them against the loose pebbles on the ledge.

"Don't you love me?" she asked finally, her voice tight and fragile.

"I do," he quickly answered. "But I'm just thinking about what's safe here."

"Safe for you," she snapped. "You're just trying to protect yourself. I thought love was about sacrifice."

"I'm going to pretend that I don't know what you're implying," Saph rumbled. "And you're wrong. I'm just as much trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" echoed Opaque, sounding appalled. "From whom exactly?"

"The King and Queen, of course," Saph replied.

Opaque jerked and looked at Saph straight in the eye. "My parents? Why, they'd never do anything to hurt me just because I'm mates with a Hunter!"

"Your parents..." I said, and circled around her. "The child of the King and Queen is not free to love?"

"Opaque," sighed Saph, his claws scraping against the rocks, "You don't know that. I don't deny their generosity towards the likes of me, but they do keep us separate for a reason." He brushed the tip of his tail against her ear lightly. "Why would they want a Hunter tainting the blood of their precious daughter?"

"My parents would never do anything to hurt me because of you. They adore me." Opaque meowed.

"I've attended enough Gatherings to know that what they really appreciate about you is your purity," Saph murmured. He brushed the mark between Opaque's eyes. "This is a sign that you are waiting for a Prince, a tom worthy enough to help their legacy be carried on through several _purely royal_ generations."

Opaque shook his tail away and backed up a pace. "What makes you think that they'd be willing to do something horrible to me just because I don't live up to that wish? You don't know them. You don't know what they want for me."

"If I'm wrong, then set me straight," Saph challenged. "I suppose that if what I'm saying isn't true, there must be something that has made you certain otherwise."

Opaque was quiet.

"Well?"

"Enough, Saph. Of course they want a Prince for me, but I can assure you that what they want more is my happiness, and you're what makes me happy." She flattened her ears against the top of her head. "So can we please just leave it at that?"

Saph sighed, looking down past his shoulder. "I want to be with you, I really do. But more than anything, I want you to be safe-"

"I am safe," Opaque said shakily.

"If you're absolutely sure," said the blue-gray tom uneasily, "Then I should trust you."

They leaned up against each other once again. I watched as Opaque brushed her tail against the mark on her head several times, as if she was trying to rid herself of a persistent flea that just wouldn't leave her alone. I could sense the fear and uncertainty that was carried in the air she breathed before me, and I took it in myself, feeling the same emotions as it coldly wafted through my being like a frigid fog.

"Opaque," I murmured, letting her name slide off my tongue, chewing on the syllables, and swallowing the sound. "Opaque...Opaque..."

At last, I turned away, looking out onto the churting water, which rolled and fell nervously, clumsily. I spoke as if I was speaking to her, though in that moment, she knew not out my voice or my presence there before her; "I don't know much about love. Love has failed me many times in my life. Failed to save others, failed to give me enough strength to fight away the tangles of fear and danger." I glanced over my shoulder. "But if there's one thing I know about love, it's that everyone should be free to share it with who they so please. It's a force beyond even I, or those who came before me could control." I observed Opaque as she and Saph bid each other farewell as dawn threatened to rise from behind the wall of water. He gently touched her ear with his broad, dark nose, and she rubbed her cheek against his as he did so. I let them walk off in their opposite directions, following them only with my promise, "But, I will do what I can to help you maintain that freedom, transform it into what you can thrive off of for the rest of your mortal lives. This is my promise to you."

And with that, I felt the Earth shake. The water rose and fell as normal, the wind drifted soundly from below the cliffside, calm and quiet, while the rocks remained still on their foundations. But tension brewed beyond these things, within them and around them, in heavy bouts that only I could feel, and left no living cat in wonder. It was a warm and threatening build up of the forces that rested between the tangles of my voice.

"Worry not," I said to them. "You'll find peace in my vow. Opaque, and those who come after her will not be denied the desires that the rest of the universe prohibits." I looked down at my paws. "I will be the bridge between boundary and infinity. I will be the bringer of hope in an uncaring world. This will be my purpose."

That word felt unfamiliar on my tongue, as if it had never been spoken before. I hadn't been planning to say anything after my vow, but I noticed myself pause on the cliffside. I had somehow surprised myself my saying what I did, by saying that word in particular, but I told myself not to ponder long.

Besides, Opaque was not the only one after making that promise to have met my watching eyes. Take, for example the one whose red pelt earned him the name of Scorchpaw. He was an apprentice of a fairly new societal development that I happened upon within the trees of a curious forest. I remember how I felt when I allowed by paws to touch the ground beneath the trees. I don't believe I had come across a place so rich with spirtual energy. It was nothing that could have just emerged one day under the sun. It was built upon moons of hardship and healing, of war and alliance, of life and death originating from several directions, all coming together to form a realm within the depths of the Unknown.

I cursed inwardly at the idea of letting such a significant spirit world join the network of tyranny I had worked so actively against in the past. How could I have not sensed the chains casting forth upon the trees of this forest, getting tangled like nasty vines around the roots of the earth? It felt like I was padding through a complicated prison, familiar, yet so enraging. This is not what the living world should be like! There should not be lines or strings or _chains_ acting as the connection between life and death. Every cat should be the one to build their own bridge, not struggle to balance on an impossible transit. Such limitations will force the innocent to rely on the Messengers to keep the steady.

And it's even worse when the entirety of Scorchpaw's existence was centered around this very truth.

I found him immediately, just a young tomcat struggling and striving to make those around him content with his progress. It sickened me just how much he seemed to rely on their approval. I saw that he was strong; it was the determined glint in his eye that drew me towards him beyond all others. He was shaping his whole life around being a worthy companion to his, what they called a Clan. At first, despite my interest, I was rather irked by this fact. He wanted something I was against. He relied on others to boost his self-esteem, and such a way of living would unknowingly take what little power he began with and give it to those older cats, but there was a reason I was drawn to him, a reason that fate decided to weave between us much later.

Living in a territory of thick undergrowth and tall trees, Scorchpaw, and those like him were required to learn the skill of scaling the bark and traveling smoothly across branches. It was a battle tactic of theirs, and one I admittedly approved of. It's always a disadvantage to be beneath your opponent. I myself, at one point being young and consequently small, was always angered when I was pitted against a peer far larger and muscular than I was. And when claws were not permitted (as they often were not), that placed me in a difficult place. I felt pride for Scorchpaw when I watched him move among those branches, imagining him at a time when he could bear down on a much bigger cat too slow to catch him directly above his broad head. I sat in the undergrowth and watched as the apprentice cats gripped the bark, pulled themselves higher, leaped from branch to branch, and occasionally slipped when putting their paws down just a moment to early or late. Scorchpaw was one of them, but never did a mishap hurt his determination.

Rather, it damaged something else.

His mentor, a dark gray she-cat by the name of Smokesky thought she would test Scorchpaw's speed among the branches. According to her, a rival Clan named for the darkness of their territory had minimal knowledge of moving in the trees during battle. Smokesky was not a cat I had taken a liking to. She spoke with a raspy, sarcastic matter-of-fact tone that made her sound undeservingly entitled. There was always a cat. Her blue eyes were unnaturally narrow, as if she was consistently in a state of disapproval, and he movements were long and prideful. Smokesky was young, younger than any of the other Clan cats of her caliber, but she was feared among them, and especially looked up to by Scorchpaw.

"You should never be too confident," she growled to him. "While no Clan has ever amounted to the skill we possess up there in the leaves, there's no way of knowing what a particular warrior may be capable of." Smokesky strode towards the largest tree in the given area. It's wide trunk and think roots spoke of its age, but Smokesky paid no mind to this. She ran her claws harshly and carelessly down its bark. "Perhaps, a rogue has lived his whole life up there in the branches. You must be prepared for anything."

Scorchpaw fidgeted nervously. His head bobbed as he replied. "Yes."

I saw a smile form at the end of Smokesky's mouth. A devious glint appeared in her eyes for a moment. "You've been training well up there for the past few days. Steady paws, correct distance measurements, but that was all done at your own comfortable pace." She sat down, her tail rippling down over her forepaws. "It was requested by Toadstar that you learn what it's going to feel like in the heat of battle, so I thought the best way to teach you is to face you up there myself, instead of with another apprentice."

"We're going to fight up there?" asked Scorchpaw casting his bright Amber gaze up towards the sky.

"Not yet," Smokesky answered. "I thought I'd first test your speed there in the branches. You'll climb up first, and I'll follow you. Treat me like a big scary ShadowClan warrior. You don't want to face me." She waited for Scorchpaw to get a good grip on the bark. "Your only objective is to try and get away. Don't let me catch you. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Then go."

He moved up the trunk like a squirrel averting danger, quick, clean, and with a mindless determination. When he made it a few branches high, Smokesky launched herself towards him. She was like a shadow in the night. She had already reached Scorchpaw by the time he even placed his paws down comfortably.

There was not much that I could see with most of their bodies being concealed by the leaves and branches, but I felt Scorchpaw's panic as he scrambled to leap quickly enough away from his mentor. Smokesky swiped through the leaves, just missing his tail as he made it to the branch above them, before sliding through the air to the the next tree over. Without looking back he circled around the towering trunk, trying not to get tangled in the endless maze of branches and twigs. Smokesky managed to twist and turn so naturally that she appeared to pass through her obstacles.

_You're using your experience to a greater advantage than need be,_ I hissed inwardly as I watched from below. I understood the purpose of placing Scorchpaw into a possible future so he could prepare for what may happen, but it brushed against my spine the wrong direction that it seemed like she was torturing him for the sake of it. Everything that he was doing, he was doing to gain her approval, and now he only seemed to fear her.

Scorchpaw slipped when trying to move across the tree and slammed down on the branch below him. Smokesky paused directly above him and prepared to bear down her weight with a blow. The dark ginger apprentice saw her intent and desperately climbed away from her scope of attack. I felt a twist of the wind spread across my nose from his direction and knew that he must have harmed his leg somehow. Nonetheless, he kept going, despite the pangs of agony I felt pulse in the air.

They moved in a jagged pattern about the trees that resembled a broken circle. Scorchpaw led his mentor around and around the general area, never stepping on the same branch twice, but also never breaking the unspoken borders of the training clearing. Exhaustion hung heavy in the air and breathing it's winds I began to felt fatigue myself. Scorchpaw's bones were youthful, but still growing all the same, and it was only so far that his shorter legs could carry him without fatigue weighing cruelly on his muscles. My shoulders ached in sync to his. My pads felt as if they had worn to their tissue, and my flank felt strained from twisting and turning so much in such little time. I extended my arm of sympathy towards Smokesky, who too was tired from the exercise. But to her, that's all it was, exercise. She had no idea the agony that was flaring throughout the body of her determined apprentice, or maybe she did, but in any case, she didn't look like she was planning on stopping the test anytime soon. Smokesky was determined as well, but she wanted to see something else. She wanted Scorchpaw to fail.

"You malicious and frozen-hearted she-cat," I snarled her way, hoping that she would be able to feel my hatred like thorns in her ribs. I knew all too well what it was like to bare malevolent intent towards a particular individual...or many, but those that I despised were no innocents like Scorchpaw. They wronged the lives and the afterlives of countless toms and she-cats, and had the nerve to believe that they had any right to involve themselves in the precious sentience of mortals. "You ought to pay for your abuse."

As I spoke, Scorchpaw gave his last determined breath up in the trees. His fatigue ran up before him and pushed him just shy of the correct branch. I watched in horror as his claws just missed the smooth and safe bark, and failed to break his plummet down the below branches. Each hit turned him and worked him in a different direction so that he couldn't see which wah led to the sky and he other led to the cold hard earth. He realized soon enough as he struck the dirt with a horrid _crunch_!

Smokesky halted in the trees, and looked down towards where her apprentice laid. When she saw no movement, she gracefully climbed down the trunk she had started with and went to sniff his dark ginger fur.

I threw myself between them. Smokesky was unaware of my presence, but I had forgotten in that time due to my rage. I snapped and snarled at her, "Look at what you have done, you fool!"

"Scorchpaw," she said rasped indifferently, prodding his scruff with a single extended claw. "Arise. It's time we return to camp."

"How repulsive you are to give no regard to the pain he is feeling right now, to carry on as if that fall was no more than getting tangled in a bramble bush," I hissed.

Scorchpaw's eyes flung open. He didn't move his head as he tried to focus on his mentor above him. Her cold blue eyes bore into the dying embers that drifted within his own amber, and blinked as if he was gazing directly into the sun. "Help," he croaked.

"What is this? Get up!" she demanded, furrowing her brow.

"I'm stuck," he managed to say. "I-I can't move."

A flame of realization crept into Smokesky's countenance, and she lifted her head away from his. Her tail, which had been lashing impatiently moments before, stilled I'm the air and lowered between her hind legs. "Try."

"I can't," he insisted solemnly.

"_What_..." The confidence in her voice deteriorated. "Well, try harder!"

"I can't," he said again. He flicked an ear, but when he attempted to shift his paws, they stayed still where they were, crossed unnaturally in front of him.

I sympathized with him, but felt nothing except a ringing in my head and a pounding in my skull. Everything else was numb. For a moment, I panicked, until I pulled back from the dark ginger tom and looked on in pity.

"Do you feel this?" Smokesky asked before running her forepaw down his spine, then his flank, then one of his hind legs. To all of it, he gave a breathless, _no_. Her jaw tightened and she unsheathed her claws, drawing blood against his shoulder, but he didn't even blink. "What's wrong with you?"

"I can't move," he mewed matter-of-factly. "I'm stuck."

The dark gray she-cat bared her teeth aggressively, and all anger circulated around the clearing and returned like he heat of fire back within her chest. She lunged and grabbed his scruff in her teeth, beginning to drag him away. Each step she took got weaker, and every leaf he brushed carelessly along the ground sparked another flame of frustration within Smokesky.

She brought him to their Healer cat, a rather plump, but very quick white and gray tom by the name of Galewing. When he saw Smokesky push through the camp entrance carrying the limp body of Scorchpaw, he wasted no time in preparing a nest immediately and lining up all of his herbs in a strange and perfect arrangement that any other cat would see as impossible to manage so swiftly, but I watched him do it. It wasn't magic. It was art.

Galewing gestured for Smokesky to lay Scorchpaw down on the newly made nest and began his examination before even having to breathe twice. As he worked his large but nimble paws, he questioned the mentor as if he had rehearsed before hand.

"What happened?"

"We were training, up in the trees, and he-"

"Why were you in the trees?"

"Toadstar wanted me to test his speed and agility in-"

"Okay, what happened?"

"He fell too short of a branch and fell."

"How far?"

"I don't know, about twenty fox-leng-"

"Why couldn't he break his fall?"

"He may have been-"

"May have been what?"

"He may have been too fatigued..."

Galewing paused and looked up at the mentor with a questioning dark blue glare. She seemed to shrink under his gaze, and I surprised to see her, always so brisk and confident, seem to lose it all in heartbeats. "Why were you working him so hard?" he finally asked.

"I...I," Smokesky stammered, her eyes darting around the den. "I don't know! I just...wanted to."

"You wanted to?"

"Don't tell Toadstar."

"You wanted to see him fail you and become discouraged?"

"What?"

"That's what you wanted to do."

"Don't tell Toadstar, please."

"That's what you wanted."

He broke the stare and continued on Scorchpaw, doing what Smokesky had done in asking whether or not he felt in a certain place, but I knew he couldn't. He was numb everywhere from the neck throughout the rest of his body, save for this tail-tip which twitched every few minutes.

Eventually, Galewing sat back and began counting his herb supply. "Well, I have good news and bad news," he announced. "Smokesky, would you kindly fetch Toadstar?"

The dark gray she-cat nodded erratically and scrambled out of the den. Several moments later, she returned with a pale brown and white tabby tom. I growled as I felt his presence overwhelming the den space with authoritative energy, and leaned against the wall, eying Scorchpaw empathetically.

"The good news Scorchpaw," Galewing said, after explains what had happened to Toadstar, "Is that you will regain partial mobility in your body over the next few moons, as long as I give you the correct medication." At this, a small smile formed on the apprentice's lips. "The bad news," he continued, his voice growing somber, "Is that it's _only_ partial mobility. You will not recover well enough to continue your training unless you endure intense physical therapy, but that could take longer than I'll be alive."

"What?" Smokesky asked weakly.

"What?" I echoed, appalled.

"What?" Scorchpaw's voice was the quietest of them all, but the brokenness hidden between his breaths was powerful enough to make the den tremble with emotion.

"I apologize dearly," Galewing meowed sympathetically, "But there is nothing I can really do to fix the problem beyond that. I promise, you will be okay, but you will be unable to become a warrior."

"There must be something else you can do," Smokesky urged.

"I am afraid not. Only by some miracle by the stars could he continue his training," Galewing replied. "I'm sorry, Smokesky. He can no longer be your apprentice."

The dark gray she-cat closed her eyes and seemed to sag in defeat. I glared in her direction from the corner I sat. "Look at what you have done," I growled.

Toadstar stepped forward. "Perhaps, Galewing, there is a chance he could continue his training in a different field?"

"I was getting to that," the healer stated. He looked back down at Scorchpaw. "I suggest that you consider taking the path of a medicine cat instead. It will allow you to continue actively serving your Clan in an equally if not more important way than just becoming a warrior."

Scorchpaw blinked his dull eyes.

Galewing sighed. "Look, to be honest, you really don't have much of a choice here. I'm going to try everything I can to make your condition as stable and harmless as it can possibly be, but it won't be enough to allow you to earn a warrior name, do you understand?"

"Look, he's had a rough day," Toadstar rumbled. "We should let him rest. Don't try to pressure him, Galewing."

"I'm only saying what needs to be said."

"As you often do, but please take care of him and allow him sleep. I'll need to have a word with my young warrior here," Toadstar said, casting a glance sideways at a frightened Smokesky.

"Yes, Toadstar."

I watched Galewing work from my corner, moving back and forth between herbs and patient, mixing poultices, organizing the leaves from the roots, and the berries from the seeds, massaging Scorchpaw and getting no response each time he did so, meanwhile understanding none of his work. I focused on the numbness of my body from Scorchpaw's and the searing agony of his mind. I'd hardly been keeping an eye on the apprentice for a short half moon, and I already felt as if I knew him from the inside out.

From my couple past experiences, I was trying to tell myself not to get wrapped into their desires so easily, but how could I be heartless and indifferent as to let the determined glow off of his fur simply fade into the infinite expanse of time, leading to, one way or another, a cruel and mocking gateway to fate? What he wanted was to be a warrior, what he wanted was to make his Clan proud, and he was going to accomplish none of that if I simply left him to suffer alone.

And I had this same thought moments before the break of dawn several years earlier back along the cliffside. I sat and gazed at the princess Opaque, closed off from loving the one she did so dearly and living in secret fear that it won't be enough to keep him happy.

"I will be the bridge," I said, before phasing into her just as her eyes opened to the morning. I felt a wave of her thoughts, the endings of dreams and the beginnings of memories flashing in that instant while her breathing pattern repeated itself several times as if to assure that I took account of it. I listened to the voice inside her head as it stammered and mumbled in the early morning, trying to make sense of the environment.

"_Good morning_," I told her myself. "_Today is the day in which we begin to live free of fear_."

She could deny it all she wanted on the outside. I knew now that I was her conscience, how much she truly hesitated at the thought of her parents, the King Kalan and the Queen Moselle, and that fear was what I started to thrive off of feeling; the notion that I could do something to change it into the ideal of this cat I now was one with. When I was with Ettore, I was still far too bitter due to my previous and far more violent efforts of rebellion to really understand the _beauty_ of a life still left unlived. Now I could, with a new approach, a new ambition, each and every time from there on out.

A moment later, a dark brown tabby poked his head into the den and called Opaque's name, "My lady, your parents are ready for their morning meal, and wish for you to join them."

I was initially going to decline, but sat back and allowed Opaque to answer for herself. This would be the perfect opportunity to get to know these parents who wanted so _dearly_ for their daughter to be _happy_. Right. However, it still felt wrong to let Opaque have full reign. Being part of her at the time made me feel like I was being the one controlled. Her tone of voice, the fake and cheery, "Of course!" was so foreign that I almost caused her to contradict herself in a way that would make those on the outside think her behavior unnatural. Patience was going to be my most useful tactic, though I wasn't to fond of it after my long period of silence.

Therefore I was far more abrupt with the apprentice Scorchpaw. I got to work midday, in the medicine den of Galewing whilst he was taking quick and effortless care of a thorn in a senior warrior's pad. I didn't even bother to introduce myself before I allowed my spirit to slip between his matted fur and numb muscles. He shifted as I entered, my power as a spirit immediately spreading throughout his body. His case was once in which I would need to give more than my orders and opinions. To help him, I'd need to give him everything I had.

Because he was physically inept on the outside, I could feel his soul and his mind trying to fight against my entry, but I took enjoyment in subduing him quickly, pinning his thoughts down under mine, hissing at him from the inside, "_Stillness you young and foolish apprentice. I am not here to harm your fragile being. I wish to give you strength_."

Immediately I felt him submit in pure eagerness to know if my words were true. I pushed him back into the corner of his own mind as I let my own will and intention seep between the crevices and fill in the space between ability and desire. I broke the barrier between mind and body, and watched his thoughts vibrate and glow at the realization that moment by moment, he was starting to gain mobility, and it began in his tail. What used to be a simple absent-minded tail flick every several hours became sudden twitches in his fur, and then jolts, and then full on lashing along the leaves in his bedding. I moved next to his claws, which I let sheathe and unsheathe before his toes started to wriggle, and his paws started to guide the rest of his leg to shift.

It was painful and overbearing, compressing my will in attempt to drown his entire being in agony, therefore ending my conquest, but I wasn't done. Not before I could even get started. Definantly, I set fire to to the anguish and let it turn to a brash, but satisfying burning through everything that I had gained control of. I heard him wince, but nothing more.

I wish to give you strength.

His spine, which arched ever so slightly, back and forth; his shoulders which began to rotate easily; his chest, which heaved comfortably instead of with a considerable amount of effort; his neck, which he turned left and right, left and right; all the way up to his ears which angled in every possible direction, and all of this before Galewing could even realize that his patient had miraculously achieved any sort of movement.

The medicine cat turned upon hearing the leaves rustle behind him and nearly jumped when he saw Scorchpaw fidgeting in his nest. Immediately, he sent out the the warrior he had been treating and rushed to the apprentice's side. "Why, it's only been a day!" he exclaimed, amazed. Quickly, he placed a paw on Scorchpaw's hind leg. "Do you feel this?"

"Yes."

He shifted his paw. "This?"

"Yes."

"This?"

"Yes."

"This?"

It was yes to everything. For the first time, Galewing seemed absolutely stumped. His eyes seemed to gaze off into nothingness, in hopes in finding some sort of comprehension for the phenomenon that was occurring right before him. "You weren't supposed to show any signs of improvement for at least a half moon, and no limb mobility for another. "This...this is incredible."

"Maybe you shouldn't doubt him," I thought, and the words came out in Scorchpaw's still weak voice, not quite loud enough for Galewing to make out everything, but definitely enough to paint a frown on his face.

"Yes, well. I ought perform a quick examination, and alert Toadstar of this...well, I supposed it's nothing short of a miracle."

I was going to shoot something back at the tom to ridicule him of such a comment, but was he not correct? Scorchpaw would have never been able to recover if not for the strength I supplied for him. I felt a triumphant smile form slightly on his lips, and the joy of this _miracle_ radiating through his blood. I believe that I had heard myself laugh, though I wasn't quite sure what exactly that was supposed to sound like. In any case, I whispered to him as a voice in his head, "_You need me_."

"_I need you_."

"You need us," said the King, as I made the early move to suggest Opaque's removal from the High Caves. The plump and meaty seagull that sat at the black she-cat's paws was undesirable beyond a few curious bites. She wasn't extremely hungry in that moment. I didn't need to waste my effort on consuming a foreign creature when I could be delving deep into an understanding of Opaque's parents. So far, I had learned that King Kalan's father, Zhu had established the kingdom beside the "ocean" when he was a young tom, based on several ideals that he had grown up with himself. It had been a strain to manage such important information, but a few indirect questions had gotten me what I needed. Knowing now that the traditions of the Kingdom were in fact so new, I began to feel confident about change. Perhaps a bit too early.

Kalan was a muscular black tom with amber eyes that shine proudly like gold when he was addressed as King. His mate was a long-furred silver tabby, with a more well-kept pelt that I had seen in spirits. Clearly she, Moselle was quite comfortable with the life of a Queen despite having been born "simply" a noble.

Opaque leaned back, her eyes casting a glance away from her parents as Kalan continued. "You are still young, Opaque. I understand your desire for a taste of freedom, but a princess living on her own? That's far too dangerous."

Moselle broke in, blue gaze not even bothering to reach her daughter. "Not to mention, you are the heir as Queen. There's no way you could leave. You have a duty to your subjects."

"Do I?" I made her repeat, "Because it seems to me that I've been plenty taken care of on my own. I don't see how you can expect me to be able to lead a kingdom if you won't even let me make my own decisions."

Kalan laughed. "Well you certainly won't be making them alone. You'll have your royal advisors, and of course your brilliant mate to stand beside you."

"Speaking of which," Moselle purred smoothly, "your father and I have been watching over a particular tom living in the Golden Cliffs."

"Have you?" Opaque growled scornfully.

"Oh yes, and he is quite the looker. Slick white fur, sparkling green eyes, the perfect complement to you my dear," Moselle gushed.

Opaque scoffed. "I'm sure that he _would_ be."

"Are you troubled darling?" asked Kalan after swallowing a bite of his own giant bird.

"No, no," she insisted. "Go on, tell me more. What's his name?"

"Anoki," replied Moselle. "Son of one of our most powerful guards. He'll be sure to keep you safe, and as far as we've observed, a great leader too."

"That's great..." Opaque murmured, slowly looking back over towards her parents. I decided to unleash something else upon them. "Though I must ask if you are sure that you know him well enough just through observation. There may be a lot hiding beaneth a tom that you wouldn't understand just by looking at him, or even carrying out a brief conversation or two."

"Trust us, daughter," Kalan said sternly. "We know what we're doing. We always do."

"Except when it comes to deciding what is best for her," I snapped through my host.

They paused. Even Opaque was surprised at her own outburst. Such strange words when referring to herself! Kalan blinked and cleared his throat. "Who is this her, you speak of?"

"Well, it-" I could sense her fear as she began to explain herself. It was the same fear that she had always secretly harbored towards them, the same fear that wrapped around me as I entered her mindscape for those first moments. I offered my resentment, let it seep into her bloodstream and pulse from behind her rib cage, and it strengthened her words. "I am talking about myself," she said with my confidence.

The satisfaction those words brought me was incredible. In my living days, I made it my point to speak out against the authoratative. It set me on my life's path, and freed me from the ties of destiny. But most recently, the resistance I was met with was too stubborn and too deeply infatuated with itself for me to ever allow my truths to reach the life. Here, my words could be heard. Mortals could never be as strong as to fight against them.

Moselle looked down at her meal, while Kalan smirked slightly. "Of course we know you, Opaque. And we certainly can do what is best for anything that may concern you. No one knows you better than us."

"And soon, Anoki will too," Moselle added.

Opaque growled, "No."

"No?"

"I will not be mated to a tom I know nothing about," she hissed forcefully.

"Well, that's exactly why Anoki will be coming here for the next half moon, to get to know you," Kalan explained, a hint of warning in his tone.

"I said, no!" Opaque curled back her lips and stamped a paw. "I do not want him to come here! I do not want him to be my mate. The future king of this great land of ours will be a tom that I choose. It will be _my_ decision, of whatever tom _I_ love. And I can promise the both of you, that that tom will not be this Anoki."

"That's enough, daughter!" snarled Kalan, forcing Opaque back and my fury to the front of her face. "You have no right to speak against my word! In three sunrises time, Anoki will be arriving here, and you will treat him with the love and respect that he deserves from his soon-to-be mate!"

My anger was exhilarating. The rage and frustration that the King and Queen ignited in me linked with Opaque's spirit. My host was alive and burning. My words were real and bitter in the air. "You will force no respect out of my my mouth. You both think that I have been conditioned to be a submissive and powerless princess. The only reason you think you understand me is because you tried to mold me into your ideal! There are two things I can promise you now, and they are that I will not be Anoki's Queen, and I am not anything like you think I am."

Moselle appeared horrified at Opaque's words, having said or done nothing but stare between her mate and her daughter with wide and pale eyes. For a moment, I saw in her, the image of what my host was to become had I not intervened, and Opaque's face broke into a mad grin at my will.

"Yes! Nothing! I've heard enough of your nonsense and naivety. Let Anoki join us, and witness for yourself how successfully I can avoid your false expectations!" she screeched at the surprise of her parents.

"Opaque, what has gotten into you?" Kalan cried.

_I have..._my thoughts hummed. _I'm not finished yet..._

"I'm not finished yet."

"Are you sure? You've been out here all day."

"Just some more practice."

Scorchpaw hadn't bothered looking at Galewing while he leaped from branch to branch among the trees. Only a few days had passed since he had gained mobility throughout his body. The effort to keep him moving was taking a lot of focus out of speaking to others, so I tried to make sure Scorchpaw avoided his Clan as he strengthened his body. There was still time.

He grasped the next branch with his foreclaws and paused to overlook the same clearing he had fallen into just a quarter moon before. I had kept him out all day without a meal and without a break, and I could sense his exhaustion, but my determination was so much stronger than any of his mortal needs. He had pleaded with me earlier to take a moment and maybe hunt something, take a quick nap, and then return to training, but I am a master of persuasion. He could not best my instincts. We had a destiny to prove true.

Galewing watched him carefully. "Please. I ask of you as your medicine cat, and out of pure concern and caution to come down from the trees and rest. We do not know how much your body can truly take of this."

I scoffed, and Scorchpaw repeated. "Sounds to me that you aren't confident in the miracle StarClan as gifted this Clan with."

Galewing's gaze widened. "No, no! Of course I am! But we don't know how much strength they really gave you. We need to take things slow."

This StarClan that he had mentioned was sour tasting, but it seemed to alarm Galewing whenever it was mentioned. It continued to sicken me that cats seemed to be so concerned with the words of the dead, follow their every law and put so much trust in their rulings. I planned for Scorchpaw to break from their expectations, but first he would need prove his own Clan that he was powerful and worthy despite the odds against him.

"I don't think so. And have you even spoken to Toadstar about reassigning me a mentor for my warrior training? It's been enough time that I should continue, don't you think?"

Galewing scowled. "I...I just wanted to be sure that you're confident in your condition before I-"

"Well, as you can see, I'm doing just fine. I don't understand the hold-up." Scorchpaw bounded down a few branches before landing gracefully on the ground. I stopped his face from contorting into a pained grimace.

Galewing eyed his still unsheathed claws, clearly processing the aggressive tone of his voice. "I suppose I could speak to Toadstar tonight, but I really do think-"

"Good. I should be training by tomorrow then?"

"I really do think you should consider my offer of apprenticeship," Galewing said quickly, before I could make Scorchpaw interrupt again.

The dark ginger tom narrowed his fiery amber eyes. "Why would I resort to sorting herbs and treating wounds when I am so obviously capable of more? You've come by several times now today, and each time I never failed to impress you with my people rsistent abilities. Do you really think I belong in a suffocating den, interpreting the messages of the dead, when I can be out fighting for my Clan and prove myself a loyal warrior? That is, after exactly what I've always dreamed of."

Galewing's eyes darted. "If you are really so insistent on becoming a warrior, fine! But I ask of you to just slow down. Can you at least do that for me?"

"I will follow the guidelines of no cat, especially some old and nervous medicine cat," growled Scorchpaw curtly.

The white and gray tom appeared angered for a moment. "I never made you out to be the type to rebel against your superiors."

"Why not? They were always wrong about me," I snapped back.

"I'll tell Toadstar."

"Thank you."

The leader of this Clan was a thorn in my paw. He had come by to check up on Scorchpaw a couple times since he was injured, and I saw right through his seemingly respectable and poised demeanor. He was an arrogant tom, prideful of his ranking and only subtly threatening with it. I witnessed him several times intimidate his own warriors, keeping his claws sheathed and his face expressionless while the field of cavalier energy around him expanded to suffocate others. But I knew to be patient. It takes time to work your way up to the proper position of resistence.

Toadstar had Scorchpaw meet him in his den, which my host seemed awfully shocked and nervous at the thought of. But I calmed him down, alerting his soul to submit to my own. I needed to be the one talking, just like always.

The pale brown tabby tom watched Scorchpaw enter with a smile on his face that I felt like clawing off. I noticed the behavior of warriors respectfully dipping their heads toward the leader when passing by, but I decided against following this custom as much as I felt Scorchpaw attempting it. He sat down abruptly and shifted his paws, refusing to be the first one to speak just as I had told him.

Toadstar cleared his throat. "It's so wonderful to hear of your remarkable recovery, Scorchpaw, and even more so to witness it myself. ThunderClan will thank the stars for this miracle for many moons to come," he started.

"Miracle," I repeated. "You know, I've become a bit tired of hearing that used so much."

Toadstar's ear briefly angled back before snapping back to alertness. "Yes, well, my apologies, but you heard what Galewing told you when you first fell from that tree. You must have been overjoyed when you found you could move."

"I suppose I was," I replied brusquely, lifting Scorchpaw's chin. "Perhaps, though, our medicine cat is not as knowledgeable as we so assumed."

"Nonsense. Galewing is the best healer that this Clan has ever seen. I hope that you've thanked him for his service," said Toadstar, with that assertive undertone I hated.

Scorchpaw and I said nothing.

"Hm, well then I believe we should get to the reason you asked to see me?"

"That would be nice," I muttered.

"Smokesky has shown interest in continuing your training as your mentor, promising that she'll be much gentler this time around." He saw the grimace we made. "Though, I understand if you would prefer someone else. She's had a hard time coming to terms with your injury, and has been rather remorseful of her rough teaching methods."

"That's...fine," I responded, Scorchpaw's eyes flicking downwards for a moment. I had realized that Smokesky was fearful when my host had fallen from that tree, but I also knew that it was not for his safety, but for her own reputation. "In fact, I think that I would like her to stay my mentor."

"Are you sure? Because I want to make certain that you're completely comfortable after that traumatic experience of yours. Other cats may fit the job. Perhaps a senior warrior like Lightpool?" Toadstar asked, cocking his head.

"I believe Smokesky will do just fine. I trust in her to have softened since the accident," I meowed. Scorchpaw's claws unsheathed. "Which is perfect."

"Very well. If that is what you truly desire, then let it be."

_If that's what you truly desire..._

_Excellent. _

Smokesky was pathetically grateful towards Toadstar for allowing her this "honor". It made me sick to see how much she seemed to respect him in fear of losing her dignity. She was so unrecognizably kind, that she didn't even consider my suggestion of battle training was tainted with a venomous grin.

"It's whatever you wish, Scorchpaw. You deserve it."

_You deserve it. _

Opaque repeated this to herself under her breath as she walked beside Saph towards her parent's den. "You deserve it, Opaque. To be happy, to be loved. To love whoever you wish."

Saph looked down at her with a concerned gaze. "Look, my love. I have to ask, are you sure that this is a good idea?"

Before she could answer, I did. "Of course it is! When Kalan and Moselle see that she have already found a mate, they will not be able to deny her what she wishes."

He blinked at my choice of words and kept walking.

Kalan tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as he studied the nervous Saph. Moselle reacted in disgust at the simple commoner, and I could feel a flicker of anger within Opaque, which I quickly went to consume. I wanted all the power I could take to show them how wrong they were, and felt Opaque sag against me tiredly.

_I'm doing you a favor_, I reminded her.

_Please..._

The guards eyed Saph as we entered the high bowed to the King and the Queen, and I turned to brush my paw against his flank. "You have no reason to respect these cats," I told him. "Anyone who is against your love deserves none of it."

He looked in unease towards me and avoided their pressing gazes.

"Opaque," Kalan began. "Would you mind telling us why you've brought this cat to our den?"

"His name is Saph," I told him dangerously. "And I think you should know about him."

"And why would that be?" Moselle questioned, though it seemed through the reservation in her glare that she already had an idea. Saph noticed it, and backed away a brief pace, but I only moved forward.

"I made it very clear the other day that I have no interest in mating to Anoki," Opaque explained at my forceful command, "And the reason for that, is that I already have a mate, and you are looking at him now."

Kalan's gaze stretched and his muscles rippled beneath his sleek black pelt. Moselle appeared horrified, as if she was looking upon an ocean set aflame. The guards around us even reacted despite the stoic and wordless demeanor, their ears flattening and their paws fretfully shifting under them.

"I will not accept your corrupted traditions. If I am to rule this kingdom one day, it will be with the cat that has treated me with the love that you failed to give," I hissed, claws scraping on the stone.

"Opaque," whispered Saph.

"No. They should hear this. I don't care how many times I will have to say it before they listen," I responded without even looking at him.

"I believe we heard you already," rumbled Kalan with a voice of thunder. "It doesn't take much for us to see that our daughter has intentionally betrayed us by taking this pathetic lowlife for a mate."

"I...I don't even know what to say," murmured Moselle.

"It's as if I'm speaking to a cat I do not know," the king snarled viciously.

"You are," I hissed back, "You never knew me."

"If that is so," Kalan growled, leaping down from his stone and approaching Opaque with a dark shadow over his eyes, "Then perhaps you were never our daughter to begin with."

I paused, stunned for a moment. Opaque managed to break through with a weak, "What?"

"For taking this...tom as your mate," growled Kalan, "You are a traitor to your own subjects. You are dooming them to fail as a kingdom. A commoner can't be king! They are not capable of the intelligence and the bravery it takes to rule!"

Saph scowled, but said nothing. Opaque winced at her father's words. "But you can't just disown me! I have to be Queen our bloodline is lost!" I tried to reason.

"I believe one of my sister's kits should do just fine as heir, considering they are already mated to nobles, and clearly honor our kingdom far more than you do," said Kalan coldly.

"Mother, what do you have to say about this?" Opaque asked, her voice pleading.

"She has nothing to say," her father snapped before Moselle could reply. "There is no statement that precedes my own. I believe I've made it quite clear. Leave Opaque, you are no longer our daughter."

"No!" Saph interjected, leaping between the king and the princess. He dodged a strike from Kalan and continued. "Wait, please! I beg of you, my king, do not do this to her. Keep her here in this den, where she is safe, where she can learn proper royal etiquette."

"What are you doing?" I growled.

"I don't want her to be lost out there. I wish for her to be safe. Please, keep her, call her your daughter, and take me prisoner for the rest of my life."

Opaque gasped, "What, no!"

"Yes," Saph said, "Anything that means you will be okay."

"But you don't have to do this," she growled. "Maybe we will be alright. We can be together."

"Away from them," I added.

"No. I can't provide for you, Opaque. You know that. And you deserve only the best." He turned back to the king, and bowed to him. Kalan overlooked him, and then Opaque, his teeth clenched and his ears angled down.

"Very well. Guards, take him to his prison," he announced, and two dark gray toms followed the order. Saph looked back over his shoulder sadly, before disappearing into the caves.

Moselle finally spoke feebly. "It's okay, Opaque. You won't ever have to see him again. We'll be safe from his lowly poison, and you'll belong to the throne."

"Safe, with us," said Kalan, turning to sit back on his stone.

Opaque looked up at her parents, breathing heavily. I tried to calm her down. I tried to think of something I could say, something that could break the chains that still held. Opaque wouldn't listen to me, and I felt my conscience being outweighed by her emotion. I was pressed against the walls of her body by fearful hallucinations of Saph being tortured, and all of the regret of allowing me to bring him there. I pushed back, trying to keep her level, calm understanding, patient. We could think of a solution; there had to be a solution!

_I'm doing this for you!_ I shouted.

No! Her wrath burst, and it expelled me from her mortal body. I hadn't enough control to hold on, to tame her again, to assure her that I would succeed in the end. To her, this was the end, I'd led her there far too quickly.

She turned and ran off, climbing the cliffs and rocks, trying to find freedom from my soul that had failed her, and I tried to run after her.

I ran.

And then I jumped.

Descending upon Smokesky like a malicious lightning strike, Scorchpaw yowled with the might of a windstorm. He slammed her shoulder blades into the ground, and her head rattled with the inability to keep up. Her gaze was clouded with shock as she laid paralyzed for a moment.

Interesting how that works...

He was met with nothing at first, and then her body shifted, preparing to toss the much smaller cat away. I, having neglected my fighting for many moons, was not quick enough to avoid her strength, and was thrown back with Scorchpaw before the grip was fastened.

We skidded along the ground before stopping ourselves with our hind paws, staring virulently into her eyes as she stood. I fed Scorchpaw my thoughts, letting the, dominate his every move. My hatred pooled in each inch of his body, from ears to lashing tail. _She tried to destroy you. It's her fault you were almost never a warrior. She deserves to be put in her place. _

_Do to her what I couldn't do to them. _

Scorchpaw's snarl rippled deep in his throat as he drew closer to his mentor. Smokesky held a ferocious but patient expression. This was only battle training in her mind. She was too dense and too remorseful to see the raw, throbbing repulsion that bled from his fiery eyes. She watched him with a cool sideways glance as he stalked to her left, and unbeknownst to her in the thick undergrowth, I had unsheathed Scorchpaw's claws.

My claws. He belonged to me now.

I lunged, and just in time, she turned and threw a painless blow at his neck, sending me crashing down behind her. Smokesky loomed above me for several moments. I was in her shadow, and I could feel her pride slowly returning.

_The likes of you never learn..._

"Scorchpaw, it's highly important to be able to mimic the skill of your opponent," she started to explain, and I sank my claws deeper into the bracken. "When facing a warrior with far more experience than you-" she moved to pin him to the floor, "-you must be able to study and master their same tactics, or you'll find yourself-"

I twisted, slipping a foreleg out of her loose grasp and nailing her with my exposed claws right in the nose. She leaped backwards with a startled gasp as I roared, "Shut up you terrible mouse-heart!"

She looked down at the wound I had inflicted, licking the blood from her nose as fury transformed her shocked expression into one of anger. I growled and spat fearlessly as her gaze landed on my bright and colorful eyes.

"...You know it is forbidden to use claws in a training session," she warned with a level voice.

"Are you truly so blind to not see that this is so much more than that?" I questioned. "You almost got the best of him...you almost beat his determination, you almost extinguished a burning flame." I stepped closer. "I gave him life again, and I refuse to let you or anyone for that matter try to take it back with your forsaken entitlement!"

Confusion flashed from behind her eyes. "What? That...that doesn't make any sense."

"Consider it a threat," I told her.

Smokesky scowled. "That's quite enough, Scorchpaw. We're done for today. Let's discussion your punishment for your indiscretion back at camp."

_Indiscretion..._

_Indiscretion..._

_I need to find out the punishment you shall serve for this indiscretion. _

_"You'll see how poorly it does at containing me."_

Scorchpaw cried out in pain as I let the very fire of my soul explode from within his body. Smokesky flinched at the horror of it, unable to register that fact that my host was rushing at her with the speed of impossible rage. I lifted his claws so they glinted dangerously in the sunlight, reflected Smokesky's gaze a heart beat before she was overcome with incredible fear of her impending demise.

There is no other experience like the rhythm of flesh splitting against your claws.

Dark red blood splashed across the undergrowth, tainting the forest in my rage. Scorchpaw collapsed before the trembling body of his dying mentor, as she struggled to hold on to the final strings of life with her blue eyes looking up to the heavens as if pleading to her precious StarClan. My host watched her emotionlessly, paralyzed once again, refusing to accept the strength I tried to give him.

_She's dead. I killed her._

_And now there's no one stopping you. _

_I killed her. _

Smokesky was motionless then, her gaze frozen, looking up at the sky, and her mouth parted slightly, as if her pleads her life were no stronger than whispers. I watched as her shimmering, transparent spirit peeled away from her body, and she looked around in surprise.

"Run," I told her. "You cannot hurt the living anymore. You can go anywhere you wish to go."

But to no avail. I could see it now, the light that began pushing through the trees, the stars that had chosen to fall down to the mortal world, cascading through a ghostly wind. Scorchpaw had no idea what was truly happening. He couldn't feel my fear as I watched.

He's coming...

Who?

Him. It's too late. I must leave. They cannot find me here.

I reigned in my power, taking back everything that I could before escaping my host's body. The dark ginger tom let out a submissive breath, the last hope of movement vanishing along with me. The last hope of becoming a warrior retreating into the depths of the Unknown.

"I failed you, Scorchpaw."

And I was dead again.

**Remember to review everyone! And in it, tell me how long it took you to read this. **


	6. Eye of the Storm

**Part 2 of the Addiction has been canceled. Updates on this story can be found on my DeviantArt page. Link is on my profile. **

**This is chapter 6. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. The relationship between the two characters here is so interesting to develop, and perhaps difficult to interpret. I also realized through writing this that Lonespirit is probably the hardest character I've ever come up with. Her morals and way of thinking are so complicated. She is also probably my favorite character. She might one day become something original. **

**I also think that this might be my final fan fiction. I've lost interest in Warriors, and a lot of my favorite writers have moved on as well. I can guarantee that I'll still be here as long as I'm writing this story, and even after it's done, but this is the last of cats you'll see from me. I had fun. Thanks for tagging along. Enjoy this chapter and the rest of To Be Alone. **

Eye of the Storm

"Are you listening?"

It was a simple question, hardly in need of answering. Usually the cat being spoken to would blink their eyes in recognition of the words, and that would be all he needed to see, but they'd nod anyway. Other times, the brief alarm and puzzlement that flashed through their eyes the moment his voice grew sharp would let him know immediately that the last several minutes of speaking had been in vain. Those other times occurred far more often than anyone in his position would like, and he expected nothing less at the current second, but he to his surprise, he received something else. It wasn't a dip of the head or a bewildered gaze in his direction. This time, this one specific time, there was no response.

He furrowed his brow in frustration. Had he not been heard? Impossible unless for the deaf, due to the natural thundering of his voice sure to shock any cat into attentiveness. Though, if he truly wanted to, he could speak to the deaf. There was no need for that thinking. This cat had no reason not to hear him.

In the exact sliver of infinite time that he had prepared to unhinge his jaw again, she said something.

"Don't ask again."

He pinned his ears back, now miffed. No cat had any ability to understand him as well as she, and they'd hardly known each other more than a few moons now. As young as she had been in life, and younger still in death, she always seemed to be a step ahead of him. It was admirable, but troubling all the same.

Instead of voicing his concern, he responded calmly, "You'll one day be very good at prophesizing."

Her smile mocked him. He could read the irony on her face. "I know. I can see it now."

He dismissed the scorn in her voice. "I assume, then, that you were indeed listening."

"I might as well pay attention now and spare myself the agony of sitting through it all a second time," she meowed bluntly.

"Trust me, you'd be helping the both of us," he said.

"Then what would be the hold-up?"

"Perhaps it's the very probable regard that you are taking none of this seriously." He narrowed his eyes and stared with challenge down at her. "Please do not make the effort to tell me otherwise."

"It really wouldn't be much of an effort."

"You're insulting me."

"And you're enjoying it," she said, and he was surprised.

"Hardly," he hissed gruffly, feeling static crawl through his fur, "but you enjoy rubbing me the wrong way."

"You make it far too easy," her smile was at this point unbearable to look at. There was always a crooked look on her face whether or not she was going out of her way to blatantly anger him. He could see that there was never a moment when thought and analytical processing wasn't going on in her head. She seemed to always be studying him, studying the darkness around her, studying the unique feeling of her paw steps walking over emptiness, as if she needed to build it into the walls of her mind to remember it forever.

Cats like him were never easy to interpret, but she did, and she did it without giving any information away.

"Dappled Leaf," he said her name, her living name, the name she had left behind when she parted from the breathing world, "I would like to continue."

"Don't let me stop you." The smile had vanished. Saying the name was the only way he knew how to take back necessary advantage, but it was rarely that he used it. One day, the effect would wear off, and he'd be left with just his raw wits and persistence to battle her impossibility. Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that hers was more powerful, and so he did his best to ensure that that day would never come.

"I find it funny that your current attitude is the reason we're having this conversation," he said, and didn't wait for an interruption. "To be a messenger is to guide both the living and the dead, the good and the evil, and present to all cats the correct path to take." He swished his tail, and the lights around them brightened and stirred like fireflies on earthly ground. They seemed to follow the lines of his body, before rolling off back into the darkness. "We walk among the stars themselves, have allied ourselves with the great celestial bodies that immortalize physical and allegoric balance in the universe. These are things that cannot be corrupted, that are and always will be."

"Then why should it matter?" she asked, voice hard.

"Because you," a light, or star, or whatever it was, she didn't know floated in her direction and landed like a snowflake on the tip of her nose, "given your once finite existence, and your now infinite one, are by definition, balance. You've lived with paws in both worlds, having need not traveled through a single or several realms of spiritual endurance. The stars, the sun, the moon, and cat alike have chosen you as their messenger, and have raised you beyond the worlds that others shall go. It is too why no messenger can last in their position for long." He lowered his gaze to level hers as if to show her the knowledge that she had yet to see. "I must give my occupation up to you, because in time, my divinity will outlast my mortality, and balance will be tipped. Is this understandable?"

"It is," she replied, and he couldn't tell how she felt about it all.

He had no interest in finding out. "Good."

* * *

The layer of the universe that bridged the Unknown with the living world was difficult to explain. She couldn't quite comprehend the sensation of traveling between nonphysical emptiness and visible land mass. She doubted that anyone else gave much thought to it, and knowing that asking him about it would result in a winded and detailed speech that never seemed to end, or give her any helpful information, she kept her mouth shut about such things. She had plenty of time to find out about those things if she so wished, but now she was just trying to get past the basic purpose of it all. Nothing was meant to be understandable, that she could get by, but when her very purpose was shrouded in an impenetrable cloud of mystery, she was bound to question the truth behind it.

Her paws met a field of resistance and she knew that she had entered the mortal world. She could never just touch the ground; she always had to be just above it, floating in nothingness. She couldn't even breathe the air around her. She'd inhale, but nothing would reach her lungs. It was altogether suffocating, and freeing. She felt like she had been broken from the Earth, left to hover half way between reality and time's end, a projection from a realm of nothing trying to impersonate _something_.

She hated it.

She wasn't supposed to hate it. She wasn't supposed to love it. She was supposed to think nothing of it. That's what she hated most of all. She lived in a realm of nothing, where she needed nothing, loved nothing, stood for nothing, but was now for all of eternity meant to pretend that she was everything. She knew better than that, and deep down, she was sure the rest of them knew it too.

They'd arrived in a forest that had just hosted the warm months, and was now saying its goodbye. She felt larger than the trees and the river and the cold crystal sky, but wanted to hide her grandeur to let the beauty of nature show through. She and her mentor blocked out the light that the forest emitted even in day, and wore it all themselves as they glided easily above the busy floor and set the rest of the land in shadow. This world was dying; new life would begin. She felt sorry that the cat they were sent to retrieve didn't have the say in when to say her parting words to the trees.

_My name is Dapplepaw_, she said in her mind, over and over as if it was easy to forget. She had said it now far too many times to count, and whereas any other would ask, what's one more time? – she felt as if it had been exhausted to the point of having no meaning. The cat she could see in her head was a slender brown she-cat, with tall ears and round amber eyes. She was through the trees a few more tree-lengths still. Dapplepaw looked up at her mentor who walked beside her. His electrifying green gaze so far from the refreshing color of the forest around them was seeing the newly passed she-cat before she was visible to the mortal eye.

"Her name is Mim," said Dapplepaw.

"Indeed."

They found her crouched over her own still body, which lay in a bed of flowers under the shade of great oak. When she heard them, she moved to protect it, uncertainly gleaming in her pelt.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"We are the Messengers of the Unknown," he told her firmly, halting gracefully, untouched by the ray of sunlight beaming down from the sky.

Mim overlooked them, her face grimacing. She placed her paw down, and seemed surprised when the leaves below her didn't crunch at her weightlessness. "I don't understand." She casted a glance down at her body. "Am I…dead?"

"Come." He turned away, and a pathway lit up beneath them, a trail of silver lights resembling stars leading deep into the forest and fading into an unseen realm. The Spirit Realm. That is where Mim was to go. He began to float in that direction, and both Dapplepaw and Mim watched with reluctance.

"Wait! I'm dead aren't I?" Mim asked again. "Please…I don't want to be. My family has been worried about me for several days. I can't just leave without telling them what's happened."

"Come," he repeated, several voices joining his own.

"Yes," Dapplepaw said to her, padding closer. "You are dead, Mim." Her voice was clear, singular, alone, not echoing in the invisible vacancy around them.

He stopped, and the world seemed to shake. He looked over his shoulder.

"You…you have to help me," Mim meowed shakily. "I've been sick for a while now. I left my family because I didn't want them to get sick too. Now I don't know where they are, and they don't know where I am, but I wasn't supposed to die. I was supposed to go back. I was supposed to help raise my sister, Naja's kits. She has a lame paw, and can't hunt for them on her own." She began to cry. "Oh my…I'm dead?"

"Things will be alright," he growled. "But you must follow us."

"I'm so sorry." Dapplepaw murmured quietly. "If I had the power, I would ensure that you could return to your sister, alive and cured of your disease…"

_Enough_! He shouted in her mind. _She must come with us! You know how this works!_

"This forest is lovely," remarked Dapplepaw lightly. "You were going to have a gentle cold season, free of bitterness and strife. And it would have been beautiful."

"I still wish Naja didn't have to endure it alone." Mim smiled weakly. "Who are you?"

"My name is Dapplepaw," the messenger apprentice stated. "My mentor is Stormspirit."

The gray tom behind them scowled at the mention of his name at the mouth of any cat other than himself. His fur prickled with electricity. Dapplepaw ignored him.

"I know that it must be difficult to accept something as scary as dying," she went on, and Mim seems to become a little more relaxed. "I know it's hard to believe that you must now continue on and leave everything you once knew behind. I know it's sad that you didn't get a choice." Dapplepaw paused, swallowing the masked resentment in her voice. "If we all had a choice, maybe you would be with your sister."

"Oh, how I wish I was," Mim meowed with grief.

"But she too, as well as her kits will meet us just like you are now," explained Dapplepaw with light in her words. "And when they make it to the Spirit Realm, they could find you, and you could be a family again."

"Really?"

"If that's what you want," murmured the apprentice.

The darkness strengthened. Stormspirit's eyes glowed white and the starry path only brightened. As he roared, the forest shook. "_Come_."

Mim was afraid, but Dapplepaw brushed her pelt with hers and began to gently nudge her in the right direction. She didn't leave Mim's side until the brown she-cat had met the pathway, and felt the light of the stars warm her fur. As Dapplepaw pealed away, Mim looked down with gleaming amber eyes. "Thank you..."

"You're welcome."

They led her through the forest and out of the mortal world. As their sprits faded into the Unknown, light returned to the trees, and life went on.

* * *

"Dapplepaw," he rumbled, as she stared off into the darkness. "You are forbidden from ever doing that again."

At first, she refused to reply, and let his voice evanish into silence. She could feel his powerful eyes on the back of her head, searching her mind for her thoughts. She had yet to master the ability of blocking it from his sight. She wasn't yet strong enough to lift the walls and fit the boulders into place.

"You know why," he said, having found something.

She whirled around. "Of course I know why. And because I do, why are we wasting time having this conversation?"

"You know that too." He sat, his silver aura which normally breathed like the wind, finding peace and becoming still against his body. "It's fundemental knowledge of the Unknown."

"Time is what we make it to be," she repeated the line she had heard many instances over.

"Therefore in the living world, time passes. Cats die, cats that need to be led to their own spiritual realms." Stormspirit smiled at her. It was a strange thing he did when he scolded her. "If you devote too much time to one soul, you end up neglecting another."

"I don't see why you can't lead some cats while I go and lead others," Dapplepaw reasoned. "There are two of us now. And I know enough about retrieving spirits to be able to do it without your guidance."

"Because I know if I let you go alone, the same thing will happen then that has happened here today. This can't become a habit of yours once I have given up my duties to you," Stormspirit explained.

"And why not?" she asked. "What's so wrong about me helping others face the reality of their death. Was it an easy circumstance for you to come to terms with?"

For the briefest of moments that no one but another messenger would see, anguish flashed in his ancient gaze, before it was gone again. He answered emotionlessly. "No. But you heard me already. There simply isn't time. We can't control such things."

Dapplepaw scoffed.

"What?" he asked with a skeptical expression.

"Of course it's that we don't have power over things like that," she began, her amber eyes cast to the side, "Yet we all the same go about as if we are larger than the wonders of life and nature. The world dies out to make way for us, we don't care to help others through the ground-breaking change of death, we don't bother to question how the universe interacts around us because we're large enough to be a part of it all."

Stormspirit tilted his head. "Your concerns are awfully misguided and naïve. How many times must I tell you that things will make sense as you become more experience? Nothing is meant to be clear immediately. Your training has only become. Being a messenger is nothing like being a huntress of a tribe."

"And that is the strangest thing." She rose to her paws and walked towards him in order to stand nose-to-nose. "We are the ones who decide where every cat belongs after death, yet we ourselves cannot make that choice for ourselves."

"Fate isn't a choice," Stormspirit told her. His voice was heavy with wariness. When he spoke to her, it was only with his own thundering vocalization. Rarely did a time come when the voices of those who came before him joined with his to speak to her. It was subtle, but she could hear the unnatural echo. In his green eyes, bolts of lightning flung themselves across a sea of color, flashing momentarily and piercing her gaze with warning. It was a warning that she was all too familiar with during her life, a warning which she challenged with her entire will. Now as a spirit, she was hearing it, seeing it, _feeling_ it surge through her, being instilled by divine power.

They were messengers. They knew.

"I can safely say." He was breathless, "that you are unlike any messenger apprentice that has ever been."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Perhaps..."

"For you or for me?" She spoke clearly, confidently, without remorse.

"I suppose you'll just have to wait and see," he growled.

"I might already have an idea," hissed Dapplepaw.

He leaned back, breaking his eyes from hers and smiling once again, but she could read beyond what was plastered on his face. There was regret, years of it, anger, betrayal, and grief hiding in the gaze he was smart enough to take away. As he made way for Unknown and the mortal world to meet once again, he said with a familiar voice, "Then, choose wisely."

**And that's all. Considerably shorter than last chapter. Hope you all enjoyed. Remember to review! Reviews are everything! Happy Holidays! **

**~Destiny**


	7. Solid Walls

**Welcome back to To Be Alone. There's only two or three more chapters following this one. Yeah, it's a shorter story. I definitely want to keep at least some of Lonespirit's life in ambiguity. This chapter may or may not surprise. I hope to show a new side to our favorite anti-social spirit cat. Lonespirit is certainly a multi-faceted character. That's why I love her so much! **

**This chapter may seem very choppy in the beginning, but that's the intention. Enjoy!**

Solid Walls

She had fallen asleep in the medicine cat den, surrounded by a fusion of scents. Some had been bitter, others sweet, most pleasant. The wind outside was strong but not violent, as she could here the air whistling, but not the trees moaning in distress. There had been a beam of light reaching down from the sky outside, giving the dusty floor of the den a rich and refreshing color to add light to the darkness. She could feel the warmth from the outside, and the comfort of the nest that cushioned her tired body.

She had woken up in complete obscurity, nothing to smell, nothing to hear, nothing to see, nothing to feel.

And she was alone.

Her first thought was her own name, _Rosepaw_, repeated in her head frantically as if her subconscious feared it would be forgotten in an instant. The rest of her focused on the darkness, her body searching for something her paws could walk on.

It was the strangest thing, almost like a nightmare. She could see herself, her legs, her chest, illuminated as if it was standing in daylight, but the sun was nowhere to be seen, and it's warmth was nowhere to be felt. She expected that when she would start to walk, nothing would change, and she'd be chasing after an escape that could never be reached. She'd had those dreams before; a fox would be chasing her, and she'd try to run, but her legs would just never seem to carry her anywhere.

Rosepaw looked over her shoulder. There was no fox in sight.

Something about her felt limitless, like she could do anything or go anywhere, but from where she was standing, floating perhaps, there didn't seem to be anywhere she could go. Her body told her she had no reason to fear, but she couldn't help but feel so vulnerable.

_Where am I?_

She would have sworn her thoughts echoed as if they had been spoken aloud, though by this point she wasn't sure of anything. It was all so surreal, all so unbelievable, but she was reluctant to continue asking questions.

Rosepaw knew better than to just sit around and wait for things to make sense. She was taught that in order to learn, one had to make an effort, show interest, explore beyond what is immediately shown to her. They were words she lived by, even now, when she wasn't so sure she was living at all.

She started heading forward, knowing that if she just walked far enough, surely she would reach something other than vacant darkness. She knew StarClan was where cats went when they died, but she was certain that StarClan wasn't made up of nothing. She'd have to find trees, or stars, or a fallen warrior. Or a...

_I really am dead, aren't I? _

The idea didn't startle her. And she couldn't fathom why. She had been afraid during those last quarter moons, when her condition only worsened, and everyone had been afraid for her. Now, she she had accepted what seemed obvious, without the slightest concern.

They all vanished before her eyes, all her worries. Every frantic things that came to her mind left just as quickly and left her feeling nothing. Eventually, she stopped walking as if she had no reason to go anywhere.

_Rosepaw...I am Rosepaw. I_ still _am Rosepaw. I am not of the past. I am Rosepaw._

She was Rosepaw. She still knew. She still existed. She still had to feel something. Anything. Anything at all.

It fluttered in her chest. Loneliness.

She looked around, she peered through the darkness, and it occurred to her that she couldn't see through nothing. This darkness was something she had never witnessed before, and even though the shadows had no substance in the forest, the shadows changed, the shadows moved, and the shadows were refuge to the damned. Rosepaw breathed. These weren't shadows at all. This was just pure nothing.

What was anything worth if it existed among nothing?

Loneliness.

She started to panic; the fur raised on the back of her neck, and her tail lashed back and forth. Rosepaw tried to screamed, but there was no sound. There was no air, and she realized that all of her breathing had only been a desperate attempt to be alive again. Her paws that had stopped walking now charged forward, if there even was a forward anymore. Her cries for help now only persisted in her head, the only place they could exist. _Is there anyone who can help me? Please! Please!_

_I'm so alone!_

When Rosepaw saw light, it didn't cast away the nothingness like she had instantly hoped. Rather, it blended with the darkness, and she was surrounded by a new shade of nothing. She hadn't known nothing could be more than a single color, or even be a color at all.

_Help!_

"Help you say?"

Rosepaw stiffened. Someone had spoken back to her, as clearly as if they were nose to nose. She couldn't see anyone though.

_Am I already losing my mind?_ How long had she truly been there? It felt like a few minutes, but now she wasn't so sure. It could've been a heartbeat, or a _century_, and her heart plummeted.

"You must go."

One would think that her spirits would lift at the sound of another voice, but it only made her feel more and more uncertain. There was a deep bitterness that had woven its way between the words. Rosepaw didn't know how one's resentment could sound ancient, but it managed, and it scared her too.

_I have to get out of here!_

"I'm sure."

_Stop it!_

"Why, I thought you were lonely." There was mockery in her tone, mockery and rage unlike anything Rosepaw had even heard.

_...Can you help me?_ Rosepaw remembered why she had been screaming in the first place. She couldn't stand how thoughts and feelings were slipping from her mind so quickly, so randomly.

_I am Rosepaw, I am still Rosepaw. I need to get out of here. I need to go..._

_...To StarClan. _

There was silence. The voice was gone, but the light remained. Rosepaw observed the nothing around her, and she realized that there was rhythm. It swelled, and it compressed, and it swelled again. She aligned the pattern with that of her own useless breathing. In the moment that the rhythms had fallen into place, a burst of starlight washed away the nothing. A pathway emerged, with lights and colors that were familiar. Rosepaw felt wind course through her fur, she smelled pleasant things. Collective voices of welcome and warmth harmonized in greeting; she experienced the embrace of her fallen Clanmates, a few faces that she knew, and most that she didn't but couldn't wait to. It was pooled together in a sphere that encased her in realm of something as she stood in the nothing, for a split second as the breathing patterns were temporarily and perfectly parallel. It was her own shock that threw everything off balance, and returned her fully to the nothing, where she noticed the light retreating.

"Stop!" Rosepaw screeched, and she reeled at the sound of her voice, now audible as her desperation peaked. The sound went on, a single continuous scream that traveled further into the distance and never seemed to disappear completely.

The light shook. Rosepaw waited stiffly for something to happen, a condescending reply or movement of some kind. Suddenly, the dull glow ahead of her dispersed in several directions, and the rays swirled violently in the darkness until they came back together again. Rosepaw watched wordlessly as the light shifted and stretched to take the form of a cat. Blank white eyes appeared level to her and dark tortoiseshell fur filled in the darkness around it.

The look on this strangers face was somewhere between uncertainty and belligerence. Rosepaw stared back with her jaw clenched tightly. She had seen the StarClan warriors in her vision, but none of them had looked like the cat that stood before her. She had no stars in her pelt, no warmth on her face, no fire in her eyes. The frigid white glare was absent of any feeling at all.

"Can you help me...?" Rosepaw asked again.

The cat stared back.

"Please."

No reply.

"I feel sure that I have died, and I need to go to StarClan."

"Why so you sound so indifferent?" the tortoiseshell questioned, and her voice was more distant than it had been when Rosepaw couldn't see her at all.

"What do you mean?"

"You have died," growled the tortoiseshell. "Do you not care?"

Rosepaw didn't know what to say. Her emotions had been so jumbled and unclear for as long as she had been in the nothing. Perhaps she did care, but wasn't able to experience the fear. She felt desperation and confusion and reluctance stirring inside her, but none were present in her voice anymore. Her blue gaze flicked back and forth, as if trying to build a familiar place out of the darkness. At last she said, "What is this place?"

"You tell me."

"I...I don't know."

"Precisely." The toroiseshell moved a paw forward, and then back, and then forward once again. Her other three trembled, as if uncertain of what to do. Suddenly panicked, Rosepaw leaped forward and took several steps. When she saw that she could walk, she exhaled in relief.

"Look," the ginger she-cat began shakily, "I can't tell you how I feel or what I know, but the one thing I'm sure of is that I need to make it to StarClan. I feel like this place is ripping away my subconscious. I'm afraid I'll forget how to talk or how to breathe...not that I need to anymore. Please..." she gazed at the strange tortoiseshell. "You must take me to StarClan. You have to show me the way out of here."

The white-eyed cat was quiet for many moments. Her trembling paws rested, and she glared down at Rosepaw with a blend of emotions that radiated in the peculiar glow that swirled thickly around her. Something emerged like moonlight behind black night clouds that Rosepaw had not yet seen out of the stranger: dread. It was a cold as leafbare wind, and drove itself into Rosepaw's flesh. The light, the aura that surrounded the tortoiseshell whitened and shimmered like ice. Rosepaw was feeling a physical change in the nothing around her. She shivered and folded back her ears on the top of her head.

"What...are you-"

"I don't understand," the tortoiseshell murmured, to herself more than it was to Rosepaw. "You didn't come...to..."

"Are you okay?" asked Rosepaw, reluctant to move closer to the tortoiseshell.

"You don't know them," she snapped. "You aren't one of them."

"One of who? StarClan?" A lump formed in Rosepaw's throat as she began to consider the possibility of belonging in the dreaded Place of No Stars. "I have to be! I've never broken the warrior code. I've always done exactly what I've been told."

"How are you here?" questioned the stranger. The white light reached out towards Rosepaw as if trying to grasp her, but when it touched her fur, it would recoil. Rosepaw felt ice crystals crawl across her pelt.

This cat, who had previously seemed so naturally hostile, and so comfortable in the nothing now appeared to be crumbling under the pressure of her own uncertainty. Rosepaw stepped closer, willingly immersing herself in the chill of the cat's aura. The white light retreated to escape her intrusion, but Rosepaw was standing a mouse-length for the stranger's nose now, and it had no where else to go. Rosepaw's nose felt frozen.

"I had thought," began the tortoiseshell, "that you were lost."

"I am," Rosepaw meowed. "You need to take me to StarClan. I am going to StarClan, right?"

"You are." Rosepaw flinched at the response. The tortoiseshell's voice was hard and deeply unpleasant. "My question remains...how are you here? How have you found yourself seeking out guidance from me?"

"I wish I could tell you. Truly. But I don't know what you mean. I don't know who you are. I don't know what this place is, but I know that StarClan is where I need to go. Please, you must show the way." Rosepaw felt as if she had begged the tortoiseshell of this numerous times, without coaxing her any further. She had a tight knot in her belly, doubt surging through every hair on her pelt. The words felt meaningless on her tongue.

Then, the stranger surprised her. "Very well."

Rosepaw blinked wildly, trying to clear the image of the acquiescent cat before her, but what she was seeing was no illusion. With a lash of her tail, the she-cat turned and started off away from her, clumsily at first, and then with more confidence. Rosepaw had nothing else to do but follow.

She tried not to flank the strange cat, trailing a short distance behind her. She also tried not to speak, but fear had never been enough to shut her up, not during her life, not now, whatever _now_ was. She found herself in the middle of asking a question, "How long will it-"

-when the she-cat cut her off: "Time is not as you know it. I am giving you all of my assistance; no more shall be presented in the form of answering your trivial questions."

"I apologize."

"Surely." There was a glance. Well, more of a jerking of her head in Rosepaw's direction. "I find your immediate response to my irritation exhausting and sad."

Rosepaw staggered out of exasperation. "What should I have said instead?"

"Whatever it is you wanted"

"I wanted to apologize."

"You think that is what you want." Though Rosepaw could not clearly see her hollow white eyes at the angle she was standing, she could feel the chill as if they were directed into hers. "You have been trained endlessly into thinking that such politeness is necessary. I tell you, it is not."

"Perhaps in your eyes..." murmured Rosepaw, starting to build walls in her mind to protect the ideals of Clanlife that resided there.

"Exactly. Have you been given any choice of your stance on this particular matter?" asked the stranger. There was a shocking, genuine interest in her tone. The end of her sentence lifted up in curiosity.

"You mean - have I decided if it's important?"

"Well is it?"

"Important..." Rosepaw mused, suddenly at a loss of words.

"You see? Give yourself a chance to truly think. All of the values that you think have been yours will now be brought to a more personal light."

Rosepaw thought. Since kithood she was told, that when you did something wrong, you apologized. When you disrespected your parent, you apologized. When you called a littermate a name, you apologized. When you tripped over an Elder's mangy tail, you better hope to StarClan that you apologized fast enough. If she missed a moment when she should have asked for forgiveness, perhaps it wasn't all that important, but Rosepaw didn't want to live it a world where no one ever forgot to be courteous. "Yes, it is important," she said definitively.

This didn't seem to satisfy the stranger; she made a low rumbling noise and carried on.

Rosepaw didn't want to let it rest. She refused. "Am I the ignorant one when it is you dismissing my outlook?"

"Well you wouldn't be if it was actually yours." Rosepaw felt the fur on her neck bristle at the return of her earlier mocking tone. "You have lived in a world where you were imprisoned by standards and tired, paradigmatic ideas of what is acceptable. If you had thought to rebel, if you had thought to explore new ground and create your own principles before you let your mind be stuck in their ways, I would then respect your opinion. But you haven't, and it's likely too late. Where I am taking you, things will not be much different."

"Who are you to question where my point of view came from?" Rosepaw was growing angry. "I was raised by the bravest, strongest, wisest, and kindest cats to exist. Considering you're not in StarClan or the Dark Forest, my only guess is that you had no place in Clanlife."

"That you are correct by."

"Well then-" Rosepaw leaped forward and turned on her paws. Stretching her neck, she drove her face into the tortoiseshell's, "-who are you?"

It was a question she had asked before. This time she expected an answer. What she got instead was a knock in the head as the tortoiseshell slammed into her, her paw steps refusing to cease. As Rosepaw reeled, she roared, "_Learn how to walk_!"

The stranger had stumbled, one of her forepaws tripping over the other. Rosepaw dove to catch her before she crashed onto what invisible surface was suspending them in nothingness. She was so usually light, and Rosepaw felt as if she was lifting a squirrel on her shoulders.

"Oh my, are you alright?"

"Never."

"I apologize."

The stranger looked up into Rosepaw's eyes. "Of course you do."

"Well I can tell you one thing," Rosepaw growled. "I most definitely do not apologize for my concern for others, or my regret for mistakes." She pulled away when the white-eyed cat was on her paws again. "I know why you don't feel it necessary to say sorry. You don't know of any of that, do you?"

Silence.

Rosepaw sighed and turned away, beginning to walk off in the direction they were headed. She didn't know how long it would take, but she would find StarClan eventually. All the while she walked, she could sense those cold white eyes on her back.

At least she felt something in the nothing.

**That took longer to write than I had hoped for. My apologies. My goal this summer is to spend more time writing than on YouTube. I definitely am not very happy with how I'm spending my spare time. Your reviews will definitely encourage me to write more. Thanks for reading.**

**~Destiny.**


	8. Poison

**Three more chapters, I've decided. Then we've reached our end. **

**Disclaimer: Warriors is not a thing in which I own. **

Poison

She didn't deserve this.

One so lovely, so strong, so good-hearted, with such a simple wish should not suffer like she did. And what did she suffer for, but that wish I had miscalculated to carry more weight than all she had loved? My existence is plagued by emotions so diverse and contradictory that I choose not to feel them at all. However, at the thought of her, all is lost but one. For as much as I have failed to adequately satisfy those who surrounded me both in life and in death, shame is not the feeling I experienced, except in my recollection of her.

How had I gotten so entranced in the feeling of life to, unbeknownst to myself, catastrophically affect the delicate lives of those around me? How had I fooled myself into thinking my good intentions lied with them, all of these cats who had not entrusted me, but had no other choice in the face of my immortal power? How had they suffered in the bodies and minds I occupied more than when I had forcefully given my assistance? How had I, enlightened and pure of their manipulation, managed to poison their existence so irreversibly?

How had I not noticed until it was too late for the best of them?

My return to the Clans was not met kindly. I could feel the alarm and the resentment beating down from Silverpelt like cold fire brushing against the ends of the pelt. Surely, all concerned with this society was aware of my repeated presence. This, however, was not a situation they could prevent. They could do nothing but watch, vaguely certain of mischief, and completely certain of there being nothing to do in order to stop it.

I went to RiverClan, where cats were known to swim and fish face the constant threat of flooding in their home. It was not a lifestyle I had ever imagined a cat to thrive in, but they managed quite well.

Rainbreeze was the name of their deputy, a beautiful silver and white she-cat with lovely eyes as blue as the water. She served under the leader, Pikestar, who, by my understanding, chose her solely because she was well-liked among the warriors. She was a cat with many friends across all four of the Clans, and Pikestar to their medicine cat had expressed his interest in maintaining a healthy relationship with the other Clans for many seasons (Unfortunately, the river would dry up in places several moons later and disrupt their cool relationship with ThunderClan, but that is not the subject of Rainbreeze's story).

I was there for her ceremony. Pikestar stood on the highest point of their camp after the body of their previous deputy had been buried. He had been taken by an infection called greencough and the Clan had greatly mourned the loss. He yowled hollowly for his warriors' attention. I sat in the shadows, listening carefully.

"I have made my decision as to who will be taking Webclaw's place as deputy of RiverClan," Pikestar began, his gaze already fixed on Rainbreeze, who sat in a cluster of warriors and apprentices. He raised his head to the night sky. "I say these words under the eyes of Webclaw, so that his spirit may hear and approve of my choice." I tilted my head - it was the first time I had witnessed a deputy ceremony. "Rainbreeze is the new deputy of RiverClan."

His announcement was followed by the chanting of her name, and a tom who I assumed was her mate licked her on the cheek in congratulations, but I straightened myself when I noticed something. Many warriors, namely the eldest of them seemed awfully concerned with the choice their leader had made. Despite smiling in thanks to Pikestar, Rainbreeze herself had a look of uncertainty hidden behind the softness of her gaze. Narrowing my eyes, I emerged from the darkness and made my way into the crowd.

"Was she really the right pick?" asked one cat to another.

"Well it's not like she can't be deputy..."

"I know she had an apprentice in Juniperspot, and the pretty little thing is quite popular, but that's the thing; it isn't about how many cats like you. Pikestar should have chosen someone with more experience."

"You're right."

I glared at the two of them as I walked by. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the medicine cat shift uncomfortably, clearly displeased with the decision made._ So I see the rest of you have your opinion on the matter_, I thought warily, _But let us see how Rainbreeze herself thinks of this arrangement?_

I would find her later in Pikestar's den soon after the ceremony's end and the crowd had been disbanded. She held her head high and her eyes pointed forward. I admired her confidence in spite of her persisting ambivalence. She called out his name in a respectful manner.

"Rainbreeze, congratulations," he told him with a smile.

"Thank you," she replied, entering his den and sitting before him. "I appreciate your faith in me."

"Of course! You'll make a fine deputy," Pikestar meowed. When she said nothing he asked, "Are you unhappy?"

"Unhappy? No, not at all. I am thrilled that you have chosen me as deputy of RiverClan," she insisted, tail swishing on the ground. "I just have to question how correct of a choice it was. As grateful and as flattered as I am, I'm sure many cats would prefer if another was in my place."

Pikestar furrowed his brow. "Who would be better suited?"

She was hesitant to give an answer, suddenly embarrassed. "That's not...I mean..."

"Do you want to be deputy?" Pikestar asked her.

My ears perked up as the two of us waited for an answer. Rainbreeze seemed far more comfortable with this question. "Yes," she told him. "It's been my dream since I was kit. I always admired both you and Webclaw immensely. Being deputy was a wish of mine I had never imagined could come true."

"Then why are you so concerned? Why do you feel like you are unqualified?"

"I'm not certain I do."

Pikestar curled is speckled tail over his paws and looked at Rainbreeze quizzically. "Why have you come to me? You want to be deputy, and you feel you are adequate. There's no reason to be reluctant."

"I don't just want it to be a development that only the two of us can be content with. I'm sure that you saw how many of the warriors reacted out there. Yes, they cheered for me - it's the appropriate thing to do - but they were not satisfied with the decision."

"Webclaw was well-loved..."

"Webclaw has nothing to do with this. This is about me."

I moved to sit beside Rainbreeze. I started to analyze the sound of her voice and the gentle touch of her gaze. She would be the next. I waited.

"Since my youth I was liked by many cats of this Clan. I got along well with all of the apprentices, I bonded with my mentor, I hardly ever fought with my littermates, and I was well aware of the several toms that pined after me," Rainbreeze went on. "At Gatherings, I would meet cats from other Clans and even they would find me enjoyable despite our origins. Don't you get it, Pikestar? They all think you've made me deputy because I'm pretty and popular. That's all they've ever seen me as."

Pikestar didn't say anything at first, because, as I knew, he did only choose her for her likability, but he shook his head and smiled warmly at Rainbreeze, "Well there's a simple solution, then. Prove that you're more than that."

"Pikestar?"

"Surely you see yourself as more than a pretty face," he said, "If this is something that you've wanted your whole life, there's no doubt that you'll do anything in your power to show that you've earned it for the right reasons. Don't let their perception of you hold you back."

"I won't."

_We won't_, I thought.

* * *

_Good leaders are organized and prepared._

I stood in the clearing at dawn, the warriors surrounding me in ready to be sent out on patrols. I watched them with Rainbreeze's blue eyes, scanning over their faces and finding their names in her mind. This was her first act of duty as deputy of RiverClan. I would be certain that she made a perfect first impression.

"There's been an increase in the fox population in WindClan's territory as we have been informed by...Quailstar," I began, the pause used to account for the name of WindClan's leader, "It is therefore smart to send out a rather large and experienced group of warriors to mark the border in case they were to be encountered. Minnowheart, Lilyfoot, Newttail, Grayfeather, Darkear, and Ashclaw will make up the patrol." The six senior warriors dipped their heads in understanding and turned to leave the camp. From the corner of Rainbreeze's eye, I saw Pikestar nod approvingly.

"I'd like Icewind to lead the ThunderClan border patrol with Juniperfoot, Skystorm, and Aldertooth. Skystorm, take your apprentice. I've noticed that Dawnpaw is not the strongest of swimmers? When the border is marked, stay behind and work on her swimming." Rainbreeze paused and looked at the remaining warriors. "Half of you will go out hunting on the river, but keep on the calmer end of the stream. I don't want anyone falling in like yesterday." Rainbreeze herself looked teasingly at her mate, Cloudfoot. Looking back, she continued, "A storm is on the horizon and will hit by sunhigh. The half of you that are staying behind will focus on preparing for that storm. Build up the nursery walls first, and when the hunting party returns, make sure that all the prey is secured in a high location. Dismissed."

The warriors and apprentices disbanded. A few of them whispered as they walked out, several seemingly impressed with how tightly organized the patrols were. Rainbreeze beamed. I felt a wave of satisfaction come over me. This was only the beginning, and it began perfectly.

_Good leaders are brave in the face of danger._

The wind whipped at her fur wildly, tearing through the camp with power great enough to knock branches from trees. Rainbreeze stood at the base of the camp as the flooding threatened to consume us at any moment.

"Climb the dens! Get to a high point!" I had her yowl.

The storm that I had noticed that morning was upon us, and it roared with a fury unmatched by any living creature. Rainbreeze's leadership over securing the camp had been met with fast and effective results. So far, nothing had been swept away by the water or the wind.

"How did you know it would be this powerful?" asked Pikestar when it had started.

Rainbreeze didn't give an answer. She didn't know.

She shoved an apprentice forward to climb after their mentor. The stream that ran through the camp was now lapping at the exterior nursery walls. All the Queens and kits had made it out safely. The last few cats that had to make it were the Elders, one of which was blind and couldn't move quickly. Her denmate tried his best to help her along, but when he felt the water at his paws, he rushed ahead in a panic. A young warrior grabbed him by the scruff and lifted him upwards and into a safer place.

Cloudfoot yelled from above, "We have to evacuate camp! The warriors den could collapse at any moment!"

I looked down and realized the only cat still left on the ground was the Elder, who snapped her head around and lashed her tail fearfully. The water was rising.

Early on after first joining my spirit with Rainbreeze's, I realized that she had been what RiverClan called a "drypaw", or a cat of their Clan who did not like to swim unlike the majority of warriors. Though she had by now warmed up to the feeling of water in her fur, Rainbreeze still preferred to stay on land unless it was absolutely necessary, and never did she leap into a treacherous current.

She gazed down at the blind Elder, blue eyes wide with fear as the water closed in on the old cat, the only options left either to leave her behind, or jump into the swirling water to save her. I could feel Rainbreeze's reluctance to do either. Personally, I would have chosen to keep moving to safety, allowing the Elder to be swallowed by the flooding, only to ensure my own safety. After all, all she had to provide to the Clan was wisdom, which could be misinterpreted or wrong to begin with. The other Elders could dispense life lessons of their own. The Clan did not have to rely on the words of this blind old she-cat for the later generation to thrive.

However, knowing that it would be an excellent way to secure the warriors' respect of Rainbreeze in her deputy position, I sheathed her claws from their grip in the mud, and let her slide into the water to retrieve the Elder. Rainbreeze seemed surprised and shaken, especially after hearing her mate frantically call out her name as she plunged into the murky water.

I had never swam before.

Being in possession of Rainbreeze's body, I felt the cold water sting her flesh and soak her fur just as much as she did, and I let out a hiss of discomfort. The rain pounding down from the dark clouds above did not help soften the experience, and I quickly found myself surrendering just the slightest of control to Rainbreeze so she could keep our head above water. It wasn't easy, even for her. A tree branch drove its way into her flank, and she scraped a sharp piece of gravel with her pad. The water swirled and crashed over her ears. She spit out mouthfuls of river water, searching for the Elder that by now was nearly submerged.

I saw her white ears standing out against the dull color of the surrounding camp. After alerting Rainbreeze, we pushed and kicked our way her direction. Lightning cracked the sky above, followed quickly by the boom of thunder that rattled the camp.

"Rainbreeze!" I heard one warrior call, "You're almost there!"

A wave nailed us directly in the face, and with my vision blurred, I temporarily lost sight of the Elder. But a few moments was all the was needed for her to vanish from sight completely. We kept swimming and felt for her under the water, desperately trying to keep our head up.

We felt something furry beneath us, and Rainbreeze dived down. She secured her teeth over the scruff of the Elder and the two of us worked with effort to reach the surface again. We were being pushed in several directions. We lost the idea of up. Someone's teeth fastened in out fur and dragged us onto the hill.

Cloudfoot looked down at us, his eyes concerned, chin dripping. "Are you okay! Please be okay!"

"I'm fine," I growled gruffly, getting Rainbreeze to her paws as quickly as I could. I felt the dizziness in her head, but chose to ignore it. "You worry about her." I indicated to the blind Elder, who lay sputtering on the ground, water lapping threateningly at her flank.

"You did it," Cloudfoot said.

"Let's go."

We helped the blind Elder to her paws and climbed to safety.

_Good leaders don't hesitate to take action._

When Rainbreeze found out she was expecting kits, she and Cloudfoot were ecstatic. I, however, was much less so. At the time of her announcement to the Clan, there were already three other Queens living in the nursery, each with a healthy litter of kits. RiverClan was growing steadily. Had it been entirely necessary to provide more claws, I would not have been so disinclined to happiness. Now for a possible nine to ten moons, Rainbreeze would be unable to complete her duties as deputy. They would likely fall on a senior warrior whom everyone thought would have been a more suitable choice for Pikestar to make.

If Rainbreeze was going to prove herself more than just the ordinary beautiful she-cat, she'd need to resume her occupation as soon as possible.

For the moons in which she was expecting, I repeatedly told her how much of a burden her children would be on her life's goal. She didn't seem to agree.

"_Kits are a blessing for any cat, even deputy_," she argued.

"_They will only hold you back_," I growled.

She later admitted that she didn't like seeing Minnowheart thriving under her new temporary role. The older warrior seemed a natural leader; even I came to begrudgingly respect her.

"_Do you really think they'd actually replace me_?"

"_If you give them enough time..._"

Part of me felt something wrong about convincing Rainbreeze to harbor resentful feelings towards her own children, even if it did work towards her original goal of being a respected deputy. Quickly, however, my guilt faded as I gave way into the refreshing feeling of control. For once, a cat would see things my way, and I didn't have to hide to actions. She knew full well that the voice she was hearing wasn't her own.

When greenleaf came, Rainbreeze gave birth to two kits, which were named Turtlekit and Reedkit, both gray tabbies. For a time, my influence had been drowned in her excitement, but the moment I gained back command...

"I want to return to my duties," I told the medicine cat.

She blinked and turned towards me. "Really?"

One of the other Queens furrowed her brow, "Already?" she asked. "Why they're only a quarter moon old! You can't just leave the nursery now!"

I looked down at Turtlekit and Reedkit, who suckled at Rainbreeze's belly. "I can't just sit around all day for six whole moons! I already feel like I'm losing my mind!" I exclaimed, and the Queen winced.

The medicine cat clenched her jaw and looked at the kits for a good while. "I'm no so certain this is the right thing to do. You really should take more time to recover from your birth, not to mention, raise them. I don't quite understand. You seemed so excited when you found out you were expecting."

"I was, I suppose." I gave credit where credit was due. "But I've been doing a lot of thinking. My heart lies with my duties and serving RiverClan the best way I can."

"You are," the Queen meowed softly.

"No, I've already done the hard part," I snapped. "I don't want to be cooped up in this den for moons. I can't stand it anymore."

Silence from the both of them. They exchanged an uneasy look. Rainbreeze's mind fought against the words I had spoken. It became clear that everything I had been telling her had fallen through. She wanted to raise her kits, but it was too late now. I'd said what I needed, and the road ahead was clear in mind.

The medicine looked back at Rainbreeze, who fidgeted uncomfortably in her nest. She let out a reluctant sigh. "Alright. Dewfeather has agreed to nurse your kids while you're performing your warrior duties. Just, please, do one thing for me - wait until they're a moon old. I want to make sure they at least know who you are."

"That's fine," I mumbled, lowering Rainbreeze's head to sleep. Her dreams were troubled. She was sad.

_Good leaders think first for the whole._

"We need to drive them out of the territory. We can't have them just wandering into camp at any moment of the day."

"I don't think it's a good idea to go out just looking for a dangerous fight. Perhaps they'll leave us alone."

"That's logical...two badgers passing through their territory in the dead of leafbare. Surely they aren't looking for food!"

"Well fine, but there's no need to be so sarcastic."

Rainbreeze sat silent for a good while as the Clan discussed a recent sighting of two badgers in the territory, prowling through the snow. The hunting patrol that had been out at the time crashed through the camp entrance, yowling the news and snapping everyone out of the dozes. I decided to put in my input.

"Newttail is right. We can't sit around and wait for the badgers to maybe leave. Who knows how long they'll stick around, or come looking for our camp. The safest thing to do is send a massive group of warriors our to fight them off and drive them away."

Pikestar nodded. "She's right. It's better we go after them than let them catch us off guard, or attack a small border patrol. Rainbreeze, would you like to organize the party?"

"Can we come?" a small voice asked from behind Rainbreeze. She turned around and reeled briefly. Turtlepaw and Reedpaw stood there, excitedly lashing their tails and looking up at their mother with eager eyes.

"No," I replied, a bit too harshly. The gray tabby apprentices flinched. "The two of you will stay in camp with the other apprentices. We don't need young, inexperienced cats like yourselves getting hurt. Leave it to the warriors."

Turtlepaw sighed. "Mom, please?"

I felt Rainbreeze slip a little, but I pulled her back with a conclusive, "Absolutely not. Do not ask again."

Once the patrol was organized, we made our way out into the territory. I allowed one of the cats who had spotted the badgers to take the lead, while I followed closely behind. Neither myself nor Rainbreeze had ever fought a badger before. The last time I faced a large predator, it hadn't ended well for me, but I had made an easy mistake. This time, I would be sure to be careful.

The badgers were found staggering along the river heading upstream. Before I could share a plan with the warriors around me, we had been spotted by the beady eyes of the larger of the two black and white creatures. It let out a nasty snarl. I felt the fur on Rainbreeze's spine lift.

I was the first to lunge, bounding quickly through the snow and leaping to slash the larger badger across the nose. When I landed, I rapidly slipped under its belly and emerged from behind, the face of the smaller badger staring directly at me. Dodging the first deadly blow, I ran my claws up its foreleg. Another warrior leaped at the badger, followed by a third, and the three of us dealt blows and strikes one by one. Cloudfoot joined us after narrowly escaping a fatal hit by the larger badger.

"Are you okay?" He asked me breathlessly.

"Fine," I growled coldly.

He swallowed his hurt and fought on.

After being knocked to the ground by a mighty black paw, Aldertooth did not get back up. Assuming the worst, I ordered two other warriors to drag his body to a safe location. Throughout the fight, I had moved between both of the badgers and lost track of where everyone was. For the most part, I was unscathed, but I was uncertain about the rest of the patrol.

"Mom!" came the little shout from behind.

Rainbreeze turned.

Turtlepaw and Reedpaw were bounding towards me, caught shoulder deep in the snow. Their expressions were determined, they'd followed us out here. In my shock, Rainbreeze spoke without me.

"What in StarClan's name are you two doing out here?" she demanded. "It isn't safe."

I had her dodge the impending strike. Cloudfoot had just sliced the badger on the ear when he noticed the apprentices. His face fell. "Turtlepaw, Reedpaw..."

"Get out of way!" I yowled at him, diving to claw the badger in the shoulder before it could sink its teeth into Cloudfoot's body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the apprentices approaching. I heard Reedkit's voice.

"We want to help!"

"No!"

The badger caught sight of the small cats, small black eyes staring intently at their fluffy coats and round, eager faces. Kicking Cloudfoot away, it started to crawl towards them, mighty paws clawing messily through the snow. I told the kits to run. I ran my claws down the leg of the badger but it wasn't enough.

"Help us!"

I turned at the sound of the frantic scream. The two warriors I had ordered to take care of Aldertooth were being cornered by the other badger. They had been clearly wounded already. One of tried to fight it off, but was weakening quickly.

Our minds went different directions.

I stalled. Rainbreeze's body froze, the two parts of her pulling her paw steps one way then the other. She screamed at me to let go, and I screamed at her to do the same.

_"I have to save them!"_

_"No!"_

_"They're my kits!"_

_"Your warriors are more important."_

_"I can't abandon them again!"_

_"If you chose to help them, your warriors will not forgive you."_

_"How do you know?!"_

_"Think for the greater good."_

_"I'm going to save them!"_

_"You don't have a choice."_

My will blanketed her mind, like a shadow consuming the Earth. Rainbreeze screamed as she charged ahead towards the larger badger. She leaped, grazing the creature along the muzzle and slicing its nose open. It let out a wail as its crimson blood stained the snow beneath it.

"Run!" I ordered the warriors.

They did, and my ears folded back as the piercing shrieks of Turtlepaw and Reedpaw filled the air. I didn't force Rainbreeze to look. I already knew what it must've looked like.

_Good leaders do what they must to protect their Clan._

I had failed once more.

I detached myself from Rainbreeze's mind and stood in the trees, looking up at the sky as rain began to pour from the clouds above. For the first time since I had taken up the practice of joining myself with the spirits of living cats, I did not immediately return to the Unknown. I'd lived several seasons in the Rainbreeze's body, far longer than I had anyone else's, and suddenly I had realized that I didn't need to. All Rainbreeze had wanted was to be thought of as more than just a pretty face. All she wanted was to be truly respected as a leader.

And what happened?

I had her kill Pikestar.

In his old age, the tom had quickly lost his mind, starting to make destructive decisions, and forgetting completely about his original intention of keeping a good relationship with the other Clans. He drove us into battles with ShadowClan and WindClan. Surely ThunderClan would not remain passive much longer. RiverClan warriors were tired, and injured. Two already had died from their wounds. We couldn't exile Pikestar, he hadn't done anything to break the warrior code. We couldn't reason with him, he'd gone half-mad. With the inevitability of more death, there seemed to me an obvious solution.

It was not so easily received.

And now, here she was, far from RiverClan's border, stripped of her deputy title and thought of as a murderer, everything she knew and loved gone, just like that.

I found myself asking, why? Why had I done it? Why had I lived in her mind for so long? Why had I taken control of every single action in her life to ensure that she would become what she already was? Mere days into my endeavor, I had succeeded in influencing the other warriors to think highly of her. All it took was a few days of organizing patrols and taking control of petty conflicts between apprentices, and I had done it. But I wasn't finished.

I thought back. I imagined the feeling of being alive, the feeling of having control of the living. It was so refreshing, so freeing. Moments after having left Rainbreeze's mind, I already felt cold and empty inside. I felt like nothing, and I couldn't stand it.

Why did I abandon her kits? It was obvious she loved them. She wanted to be there for them. She wanted to love them, but I stopped her. I drove her away because I couldn't understand the possibility of being both a respected leader and a loving mother. Only one was attainable. Only one was acceptable, and of all cats, that was my decision. I forced her to watch them grow up from afar and live in pain with the knowledge that that little voice inside her head would never let her be there for them.

Why did I let her kits be slaughtered by a badger? She had nearly escaped me at that point. Rainbreeze had come a mouse-length too close to releasing my hold on her mind so she could save the cats that mattered most to her. All I succeeded in doing by choosing to defend the experienced warriors instead of the helpless newly-made apprentices was causing many to think Rainbreeze's relationship with her children as cold as I had made it out to be. Secondly, her mate had once and for all turned his back on their love, seeing that she cared more about how others perceived her than for her own family. This was an illusion. I had created an illusion of indifference, and all it did was push others away.

Why did I kill Pikestar? He was on his final life. Time would have dealt with him on its own. I felt the need to take matters into my own paws, resulting in the banishment of Rainbreeze from the Clan. To think that murder was the first solution that came to mind, I must be psychotic. I always thought myself sane, the most sane of all, the only truly sane Messenger that had ever existed and had yet to exist.

When I was alive, I killed the tom who passed illness to my father. I reasoned with myself that with him gone, he could no longer hurt anyone else in my Tribe. He had recovered from his ill state of being. If I'd even thought to give him the chance, he wouldn't have dared harm someone intentionally. He had never once harmed anyone intentionally. My father was unlucky, but I avenged him. Why? I hadn't even truly liked my father. I felt little agony in the event of his passing, but I killed another anyway. Was it just a way to prove once again that I could not be contained by the mostly righteous code of the Tribe? Why had one's life been less valuable in my eyes than proving such a thing? And who had I proven it to? I was the only one to ever know the truth behind his murder.

Rainbreeze sat along the river, staring with unfocused eyes into the water. Her tail laid limply behind her, her forepaw scraping the gravel. Gingerly, I went to go sit beside her.

"What have I done?" I asked her, though she could not hear me.

The sun descended behind the rain clouds and the forest darkened.

"I didn't need to use you at all," I said, "I never really needed me. You told Pikestar moons ago that you thought yourself a capable deputy despite the beliefs of those around you. If that was true, you could have proven it all on your own."

Tears welled in her eyes, her soft blue eyes, and pain lined every curve of her face.

"You've lost everything," I realized, "Because of me."

I was swarmed suddenly by the memories of all my previous hosts. Ettore, the first, who wanted only to be treated with respect by his corrupt leader. It was because of me that he was exiled from his home and stripped completely of whatever honor he had in the first place. The gray tabby tom was generations dead now. I hadn't thought of him in almost all of them.

All of their faces flashed in my mind, eyes and fur of many colors, and paws from every walk of life. Kits and Elders alike, all that I had left behind without a second thought about them. Whether I left them to die, having exhausted all their mortal power to attempt the impossible, or left them to suffer. I moved on, and I never looked back.

I imagined their voices screaming to be set free, their morals begging, _no! This isn't what I wanted!_ I never heard them say it, they must've said it! They must've hoped every heat beat that the voice in their head would silence forever. They must've wanted nothing more than to live for themselves! I didn't hear them! Why couldn't I hear them? Their cries for mercy passed right through me!

I killed them all. I killed their bodies and their spirits, and I destroyed everything that mattered most to them. I infected them one by one, eating at their minds and shaping their thoughts and beliefs as they lived as prisoners within their own heads. I fed off of their purpose, consuming destiny for myself and tossing them aside when I had drained them completely. I was a sickness. I was a parasite. I was poison.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to Rainbreeze. She didn't react. "I'm sorry!"

She couldn't hear me. They've never been able to hear me unless I was killing them. There was no us. We weren't meant to be one together. We were always supposed to be apart. What good does poison do for anything?

I stepped back, the rain ceasing to soak me. The gravel shifted no longer under my weight. I was just as dead as I needed to be. As I ran off into the forest, Rainbreeze remained seated my the river, forever scarred by the anguish I caused her.

_My treachery will be remembered here. _

_I wish to be forgotten._

**Review my dear friends! Review!**

**~Destiny**


	9. The Definition of Malice

**Two more chapters to go! Y'all ready for this? **

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Warriors. Such a shame. **

Stormspirit glided over a smooth layer of crystal-white snow, his paws brushing along the ground without disturbing a single flake. While the storm had long ended, the winds still cascaded over the land powerfully, driving earthly elements in the direction opposite of his travel. He had only just crossed from the Unknown into the mortal world, and the sky, already dark in the night blackened more as his own light overpowered the rest.

The cat he was after laid a distance off, having collapsed in exhaustion in the snow never to rise living again. Stormspirit focused his gaze ahead, watching calmly as the soul of the cat peeled away from his frozen body. A pair of blue eyes found Stormspirit's approaching form, an eerie silver glow expanding to fill the void.

When the cat could make out that Stormspirit was too of his species, he called out wordlessly with a desperate, drawling _mrrow_. He hadn't yet seemed to notice his own body laid stretched out behind him, nor that he could no longer feel the frigid teeth of the the wind gnawing at his flesh. Stormspirit began to move his paws, as to not immediately rub the new soul the wrong way.

When close enough, Stormspirit stopped, electrifying green eyes staring intensely into the blue of the cat.

"Help me, please," he said.

Stormspirit shook his head and turned around. Bolts of lightning were shot back and forth in the cloud of his aura; the cat made a small noise of half-amazement, half-confusion. "You cannot be helped in the way you ask. You can only follow and trust that I will take you where you must now go."

Though the Messenger was not watching, he was well aware that the cat had turned around and seen his own body half-buried in the snow.

"I'm dead!" He didn't seem to question it, only mumbled, "I had been so cold, so tired..."

"Come, Blue," Stormspirit boomed, "We have not time to waste."

"You know my-" the cat cut himself off with a brief gasp as Stormspirit turned his head to reveal a flashing eye.

"The Spirit Isle awaits us. Now is the time to go," he said.

Without waiting for a reply, Stormspirit began walking in the direction he had came, his eyes fixed on their otherworldly destination. Blue took a final silent look at his body and followed. He noted the way Stormspirit's aura retreated from the snowy floor and its ominous resemblance to clouds rolling darkly across the sky.

_He is observant_, thought Stormspirit. The light of his being curled into his pelt, bands of lightning vanishing with a series of quick blinks. _He is cooperative. Not many so easily comply._

Blue walked as he had when he lived, though he intently watched as Stormspirit sailed gracefully over the surface of the snow. He did not attempt to mimic the strange movements, but Stormspirit could feel his interest. _He is not afraid, rather, fascinated._

Suddenly, Stormspirit folded his ears. _No, now is not the time. His concern is as permanent as our time traveling the same path. He will find everlasting contentment in the Spirit Realm, and I with a worthy cat, who has perhaps many moons of life yet. I am lucky to have acted out of mercy than by necessity. I have bought myself time..._

This final thought began carrying him from his assessment of the present, to memories of the past. Stormspirit hadn't considered his premature decision in the midlife of his Messenger occupation a wrong one given its highly compassionate nature. There has been no reason that existed in the law of his afterlife which justified the choice he had made. It was manifested purely through the kindness of his heart. He had only recently concluded that such kindness was in vain, and even more than that, a _mistake_.

Stormspirit let his paws pass through the layer of snow that blanketed the ground. He didn't feel the cold, nor the texture against his fur, and his grace wasn't lost, but his gliding stopped for just a moment. He walked as Blue did behind him while his thoughts swirled in his mind.

Just as what little light dimly illuminated the snowy plains began to return, Blue rose his voice to his guide, "What is that?"

Stormspirit looked forward, not initially pausing. He expected that Blue was asking about the passage between the mortal world and the Unknown, as many cats often dead before entering their appropriate spirit realms. Stormspirit himself could not necessarily describe it's eerie appearance, as it was different to every pair of eyes. Sometimes, it wasn't seen at all, but felt, so he was prepared at first to simply let Blue's question fall into the same abyss that contained the rest.

But in the distance, there was something describable ahead of them. A band of light, certainly not of the Earth. It was gray and vague, barely standing out against the empty sky beyond the horizon. It seemed to be changing, compressing and expanding, swirling and flattening. There was just the slightest ghost of color, a remote idea of red, and it was coming their direction.

Stormspirit stopped, and darkness took over once again. "Turn around," he commanded firmly.

"What? Why?"

"I said turn around," his voice reverberated like thunder in Blue's ears.

Stormspirit lifted his paws and once again began to glide, nudging Blue in the other direction, back towards his frozen body. Blue's eyes widened in fear at the mere prospect of this Messenger running from something, anything. He began bounding through the snow, down the low hill he had been climbing. Stormspirit took the rear for the first time since his apprenticeship, his only concern for the safety of the blue-eyed tom.

_She's never come to the mortal world before!_

The two whirled through the snowy plain, Stormspirit desperately searching for a breach in the boundary between the earthly realm and the Unknown that led to where they needed to go. He couldn't simply wander through the Unknown with this tom with a threat churning behind them.

"Where are we going? What is that?" shouted Blue in panic.

Stormspirit could only answer, "Danger." His aura lifted from his pelt and bolts of electricity crackled within the cloud of silver light. He halted, turning towards the approaching threat. Blue stopped too, but Stormspirit snapped at him, "No! Keep going! It's me she's after," he lied.

"Well then I can't leave you!"

"I can handle myself! Just go!"

"Where do I go?"

"Away! I'll return for you!"

Blue hesitated, but nodded his head and took off into the Snowscape. Stormspirit watched him briefly before turning back. The lightning bands around him lengthened, brightened, and whitened in color. With a rough growl, Stormspirit lashed a bolt forward, and it cracked against the cloud of bleak light in the distance. A resounding crash startled the cloud back. Stormspirit didn't wait; he flung more lightning bolts ahead, sending forth the fog of his aura like the storm clouds Blue had been reminded of earlier. His power was so thick, it blocked out the white bed of snow, and left Stormspirit thinking he was suspended in nothingness.

He met resistance as the light exploded red. Lightning sparked against a wall of relentless opposition. Everything he had just attacked with was thrown back in his direction. Stormspirit hissed, and launched forward into a mist of heat and anger. Red rays whipped at his gray pelt like flames. Unlike the natural cold around him, this was a sensation he could feel. Aura concentrated at his sides, he let it expand with enough power to push the cloud away and cut through the warmth. He extended his senses as far as he could, and he searched for her physical presence, but he could not get close enough. Their energies were matched. Stormspirit's strength rested in experience. Not only had he known immortality longer, but he had many times dealt with this opponent, acting more often than not on the defense. However, her strength was in her passion, which he knew was wilder than a fire consuming a forest. Her drive was what was dangerous, and was what gave her such intense, flaming power.

Stormspirit saw it coming just a split heartbeat before it hit: a searching stream of energy that struck him directly in the head. Thunder cracked as he was tossed fox-lengths back into the snow, detached completely from his path.

There it was, a single orb of light, fast approaching like a meteor. He had only just managed to get back on his paws when her eyes flashed before his, and claws raked viciously across the side of his face. The Messenger hissed in pain and looked up.

The familiar tortoiseshell she-cat stood rigidly in front of him. He watched as the red light of her aura quickly died back to the dim gray he had initially seen. One eye was open wide, carefully studying him, a color of bright golden-amber. The other was stark white, empty of all emotion, lifeless and cold. It shone like the moon, but without all its beauty and majesty. All Stormspirit felt was chills running up and down his spine.

She spoke, "I thought you didn't have time for such detours."

The statement shocked him way more than it should have. She was always known to spew callous remarks and speak with overwhelming disdain and disrespect, but he'd expected her to cut to the chase this time. There was only one goal on her mind.

He decided to play the same game, "I don't. Your posing me with great inconvenience." His voice was dripping with scorn.

"As are you. I don't appreciate your futile attacks. We both know how this will end. Why delay the inevitable if it will only interfere with your usual duties?" she asked.

"I am performing my usual duties; ensuring that Blue makes it to the Spirit Isle safely," Stormspirit growled. "Though I do not expect you to be familiar."

"So I suppose you won't tell me where you have told him to run?"

"You know I wouldn't dare."

"If you so say." She began to move to walk by him, but he blocked her path, pelt prickling with electricity. "Do not deny me further," she snapped.

"Are you really so focused on your destructive task that you have gone blind to all else? What fool could possibly think I would let you get away with this again?" growled Stormspirit.

"The same fool who has witnessed you do it before," she replied jeeringly. "And you will do it again."

"Unless I won't have to," he warned her ominously.

Her muscles relaxed as she tried to make sense of the threat. "Pardon me?"

"I was told the greatest of us that erasing you from the Unknown would be the appropriate action," he explained bitterly. "I had been disinclined in the past, but now I see that your persistence has deemed it necessary." He unsheathed his claws and lashed out, striking her shoulder. She leaped back with a brief yowl, surprised at his actions. He had never laid a claw on her before, but perhaps now was the first chance he received.

Stormspirit hissed and lunged forward, gripping her tightly and sinking his teeth deep into the side of her head. She barely made a sound, just grunted as tumbled down into the snow, Stormspirit pinning her down. She pushed him away with a paw on his chest, and extended her claws into his fur. She leaned up to snatch at his ears with her teeth. A drop of ruby blood landed on her nose. Placing a hind paw on his hip, she twisted and quickly flipped their position. Stormspirit bared his teeth.

"Do you really think you have the resolve to kill me?" she questioned. "You hadn't even the will to send me where I '_belonged_'." She spat out the last word.

"Do not twist the blame unto me, Lonespirit!" he grumbled, struggling under her weight. "You are the one at fault for your actions! You are the one who did not take advantage of the second chance I so kindly bestowed upon you!"

He screeched as she sunk her claws into his face. Her white eye flickered with color for a moment. "Lonespirit? Is that the name by which you now call me?" She smiled in a dark, sad manner. "At least you are mindful and considerate enough to see me as more than an antagonistic force." Just for a moment, he wanted to think her responsive, warm, aware of something else other than her venomous mission, but she kept talking. "Because I am so. I intend to render the Messengers purposeless, to break all influence over both the living and the dead. This you know. This you fear. I can see it in your eyes."

He struggled to get his words out, "I...am better off...fearful and concerned than to...let you...take more innocent spirits from my grasp." He tried shifting his foreleg out of her grip but it only slipped into a more uncomfortable position. "You know that you...cannot truly...destroy us. You are wasting your time...and for what?..The loss of a few unlucky souls...The Unknown will survive. It is...greater than you...or me, or...Blue."

"I fully mean to leave the Unknown intact." She was dangerously close to his throat now. She could feel the lightning prickling close to her nose. Stormspirit growled, struggling, but unable to unburden himself from her grip. "But the spirits of cats will roam it freely and without direction. When I let you up, I will resume my task. I will find this Blue, and I will work closer and closer to eradicating the Messengers for all time. You will watch. You _will_ spare me."

Stormspirit tried snapping his teeth over her ear, but he narrowly missed as she lifted her head. He was surprised that she had not attempted to take his life while she had the clear chance. He knew she was too smart to overlook the option, but he couldn't fathom why she would not do such a thing.

When she took all of her weight of him, he felt her energies swirling again. Before he had the time to react, her aura lit up red again, two streams lashed forward and snapped at his shoulders. She extended her senses, searching widely across the snowy plains for the lost spirit. He could tell she had noticed something, because her ears perked, and her tail stiffened. Her one amber eye found him and struck him with malice, so strong that it hurt more than the feeling of fire on his fur.

"You will watch."

And then he understood. Her only concern with him was ensuring that he remained alive long enough to witness everything crumble around him, and to know that he had been wrong and she had been right and that her hatred for him was more powerful than truth. Stormspirit wasn't even certain in that moment that she believed she could destroy the Messengers. If not, then it didn't matter to her; as long as he suffered in her wake, if anyone suffered at all because of her, she would be satisfied knowing that she could do harm.

Stromspirit's eyes flashed and he flung lightning bolts forward, letting them cut through the stream. Her aura faded, and he rushed towards her. He bowled her over, and the two of them went tumbling down the hill, landing tangled in each other's limbs. She flailed blindly, claws slicing through only air. Stormspirit bit down on her foreleg, hind claws raking down her belly and detaching her body from his. Twisting away, she scrambled to her paws and whirled around, but hadn't the time to take off before he clamped down on her tail, dragging her back down. Stormspirit clawed at her flank, ripping out some of her matted tortoiseshell fur. She kicked wildly, but to no avail.

When he had her pinned, she glared up at him with her strange eyes.

"You will spare me."

Lips quivering, he bared his teeth. He heard the crackle of electricity in his ears as he lowered himself slowly.

Her white eye exploded with color.

He yelped, leaping back into the snow. The empty, cold, ghostly eye flushed unnaturally the same amber-golden as the other. She rose slowly, hissing rabidly, back arched, fur standing on end. Her voice was chilling and trembled with rage.

"Would you rather I kill you?" She took several steps his way. "It would save me a lot of trouble after all."

Stormspirit's own gaze flashed and the lightning in his pelt brightened. He was scared, and no longer for the safety of Blue, but for himself.

"Leave!" he boomed with his voice of thunder. "Leave and never return!"

Teeth glinting in the light of her aura, she crawled closer and closer to him. Her ears were folded back onto her head. Stormspirit noticed how the wind tore through her fur, unlike the way it left him untouched. Snow clung to her pelt. She was shivering. She looked alive. He walked backwards, carefully lengthening the space between them.

"Stay away from me," he warned.

"Get out of my way," she hissed back. "Or I will move you myself."

His muscles tensed in preparation for her attack. He lowered his chin to protect his throat.

Just as she braced to leap, a figure hurled itself over the hill and crashed down on top of her, slamming her down into the snow. She cried out in both surprise and in pain from the attack. A cat held her down in the snow, blue eyes glaring fearfully down at her, nervous but certain.

_No._

Stormspirit lunged and took Blue by the scruff, pulling him away from the traitorous tortoiseshell. When he released him, he shouted with the voices of several Messengers before him, "_I told you to run_!"

Blue was shaken, but determined, "Well I couldn't just leave you behind! She was going to kill you!"

"You've made a mistake," Stormspirit told him, before stepping in front of him and glaring angrily at his former apprentice. He watched as she got back to her paws, a new cut on the side of her muzzle. She smiled sadistically, blood dripping into the snow by her unsheathed claws. Her voice silenced the wind.

"Don't try to be a hero. You'll just die a martyr."

Stormspirit lashed out, but he only caught empty space. She had dodged. Slipping past him with a quick jab on the side, she launched herself at Blue, wrapping her jaws around his throat. Blue tried to scream, but his voice caught in his esophagus, coming out as a loud, pained exhalation. She faced Stormspirit, and mumbled, "You will watch."

He knew with a heavy heart that she could kill him faster than he could stop her. Stormspirit narrowed his electrifying green eyes and sat down in the snow. He saw her smile around the body in her teeth, a look that made him sick. The color in her eye died. Her red aura went gray and as dull as could be. He growled, "Do it."

She clenched her teeth, and Blue let out a blood-curdling shriek. She seemed pleased by the noise. She dropped him, and he faded before he could hit the ground.

Stormspirit spoke before he could stop himself, "I want to hate you."

She looked at him curiously, licking her lips. "If you don't already, what is it that you feel for me?"

He blinked at her, and answered honestly, "Sorry."

"You will spare me."

"Every time."

He watched her vanish.

**Review, my good friends! The final chapter coming soon!**

**~Destiny**


	10. The Things I've Done

**After many months of writing and writer's block, I have finally completed the story of Lonespirit. Please read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: For the last time, I do not own Warriors.**

The Things I've Done

I have told what it is like to walk aimlessly through the Unknown. I have described the endless darkness, the mindless wandering, the way history repeated itself in the manner I would continuously make my way between worlds without giving notice.

Years later, history would repeat itself once more.

The last time that I had felt the same sensation, I had not noticed before it was too late. This instance, I was quickly snapped to alertness, the moment I felt that ancient and familiar pressure closing on me as I neared a realm of great power. The icy brush against the tips of my fur told me that I had passed between realms. The energy in this place was thick and pressed down on my shoulders.

_No._

I felt the strong shift in the Unknown as my paw steps ceased.

_Not again._

I looked around desperately hoping to not be spotted, as my mind searched for the memory of how to walk again. I needed to change direction. I needed to turn around, and run.

_Quickly!_

I whirled to stare directly into a pair of clear yellow eyes.

With a yowl, I leaped back, disbelief and fury enveloping me in its fog. A light brown tabby she-cat stood there, her glare sharp and strangely bird-like. A thick brow curved over the front of her face and made her eyes appear piercing and oddly shaped. Her pelt was thick and feathery, her soft stripes looking ruffled. Hooked talons extended from her forepaws. Surrounding her, and illuminating the shadowy vacancy was a bright, golden aura, its warm hue familiar. I'd met this cat long ago. Her name had been Owlpaw.

"You," I hissed.

She blinked and raised her head. "Yes," she rumbled, her voice having changed from the lively, youthful sound I remembered to a monotonal diction, flattened by the weight of wisdom and knowledge. "We meet once more."

There was silence between us. Surely the both of us stood in recollection of events the last time we had come face to face. It had also been the first time, and understandably, it had not gone well.

"May I ask why you have journeyed so near to the realm of the Messengers? I thought you had made it clear your spite towards us. However," she narrowed her yellow eyes to slits, "Things could have easily changed in such a span of time."

"You are insightful enough to know that that change would never come to pass. It would have to be a simultaneous and mutual evolution," I pointed out to her. "I have simply strayed to far in one direction, and will gladly leave if you allow me," I told her, the fur on my spine lifting in hostility, though I kept my voice level.

Her brow furrowed, and she approached me, striped tail lashing behind her. I tried to step back, but she flanked me before I could get away. "Would you mind an escort?"

I was slightly astounded by her offer. There was not a sign of animosity about her. Her fur was smooth and her eyes betrayed no emotion. "Where would you take me?"

"As far away as you'd like to go," she said, before beginning to walk. Without another word, I followed her.

When she started conversing with me, I feeling of suspicion crawled up my spine and felt me with a chilling feeling on the back of my neck.

"It is quite interesting to think about the nature of the Unknown. Nothing ever stays the same."

"...No."

"Though surely you must be aware of where you are going. Twice now, to my knowledge you have come quite close to our realm." She turned her head slightly towards me as she spoke. "Why is that?"

"It is not intentional, if that is what you are wondering," I replied.

"How are you so unaware of where you are going?"

"It all looks the same," I answered, "Until it doesn't."

"I see," The Spirit with Owl's Cry murmured.

"Is there a motive for this escort?" I questioned, taking her off guard. "I expected more than anything to be attacked and driven away with force, or at the very least ignored completely. Yet you show me mercy?"

"The last time we met, I was an apprentice," she responded, ear flicking. "And I was mostly untrained in the ways of the Messenger."

"Yes, so?"

"I am certain this is the interaction you would prefer," she meowed.

I scoffed, "Well in any case concerning me, perhaps violence is most appropriate."

She ignored my remark. "My time of guidance is long over. I have breached primitive, even. I now know how to act in accordance to our nature and our code." I felt the heat of her glare for a moment before she shifted her eyes forward. "Dozens of messengers have succeeded me, and many of them are too quite archaic. The Current Messenger is named Nightspirit."

"I'm not concerned," I growled at her.

"I didn't expect you to be," she growled. It was then I saw the anger light up in her eyes. "But all I can do for you now is attempt to make you understand that the Messengers thrive without you. I hope you realize, most Messengers have forgotten who you are long ago, and those who do remember wish they had taken the chance to rid your soul of this place and you still haunted it with your unreasonable malevolence."

I stopped, for the second time in minutes. While the darkness shook around me, Owlspirit paused and faced me with a clenched jaw.

"Liar," I mumbled darkly.

She tilted her head, "What?"

"You liar!" I snapped. "Never once did he have the intention to kill me!"

She knew immediately who I was referring to. "Is that what he had led you to believe?" she asked me. "The last time you spoke, he had grieved for your traitorous actions, but much time has passed, things have changed in the Unknown - you only exist in the form of code, one no Messenger would ever dare to break! After the anguish you have caused, nothing but regret has been felt for sparing you!"

Owlspirit evaded my claws, slipping effortlessly to the side. The second blow I attempted was caught in her talons. With my belly exposed, she raked her other forepaw down my flesh. The wound was shallow. She wasn't attempting to kill me. When she unlatched her talons from my claws and tossed me down to the ground, I scrambled up.

"So what? After all that you won't even bother to kill me?" I spat.

"I stand by my belief that you are not worth it to kill," she growled. "I saw it from the day I met you - you're-"

"Sickening and pathetic?" I said, cutting her off. "Yeah, I remember."

Owlspirit glared. "Just go."

I steadied myself, and leveled our gazes.

"And whatever you choose to do," she hissed, "Do not return." Owlspirit turned around, holding her tail high in the air as she walked. Slowly, as she moved further into the darkness, she began to disappear. I pinned my ears back, my claws sliding out. This wasn't going to be how we left it. I wouldn't allow this to be the end.

"_Don't walk away from me!_"

Owlspirit froze. Her gliding paw steps seemed to rest against the same invisible ground as mine. My hollow voice never would have been enough to still her. What she had heard was a high-pitched chorus of several Messengers, their voices synchronized with my own. A myriad emotions echoed into the depths of the Unknown. Owlspirit's head turned to reveal a widened yellow eye, bird-like intensity softened by shock.

I had never done that before.

My lips lifted to reveal my clenched teeth as I started to walk towards her. "No, don't you dare. I will not be left behind again to continue this endless journey. You will not dismiss me. You will not treat me like I am nothing."

The brown tabby she-cat rotated her whole body to face me. "The Messengers of the Unknown have little knowledge of you, Spirit That Walks Alone," she hissed. The harshness of her words was flattened by the remaining surprise that rippled through her golden aura. "You are nothing in our eyes. If anything, you exist as a mistake, a minor transgression centuries old and as significant as no action ever committed on Earth."

"And yet, you've given me a name," I growled.

Owlspirit scowled.

"My past attempts to destroy the name of the Messengers may have been in vain," I said, stepping even closer, "But you can't claim the right to be ignorant of my existence. I am just as significant as you. I have existed even longer. You possess no power that is above mine, and you certainly have not seen the places I have."

"Do you flatter yourself for being ancient? Have you given thought to the Messengers who existed long before you?"

"I don't care how much time has passed," I growled. "Time is what we make of it. Action is more telling, and I let me make it clear to you now, Owlspirit, Messenger in succession to the Spirit That Runs With Storms that all you have been taught by your spineless mentor is worth little in comparison to what I have seen." I didn't give her the chance to argue, I kept talking. "I have kept to myself for all these years, uncertain for the longest time of my own place in the universe. I spared myself the agony of knowing by spending my days wandering through the darkness where nothing persists and nothing _exists_ so that I would not be prompted to give thought to my shortcomings. I didn't have anyone to blame but myself, because I could not even stand to thrive on the hatred of the likes of you. That passion is so strong, that it could burn through the barrier of here and the mortal world. That passion has destroyed lives before you ever had the chance to.

"For the longest time, I was foolish enough to think myself sane, a misjudgment I had observed even before I had been brought to the Unknown. I assumed my truth was the only, my thoughts were correct, and everyone else was dangerously misguided. I stand by the belief that your influence over the dead is wrong and uncalled for. The living cat all over are faced with limitations rooted in the very foundations of their upbringings, and in death, they still are not free of them! I have crossed into the minds of so many, seen their fears, their dreams, their desires, all to be disregarded by your aimless, undeserved entitlement. I have met parts of them that they have hidden away in fear of it being taken. These cats, these cats that we were once like, that we were once equal to, are being hunted by the malice of destiny, and you only enforce what they wish not be true." As their faces flashed through my mind, I felt something in me snap. The emptiness around me grew hot and stifling, the energy of my fury beamed off of my fur like fire. Owlspirit stood her ground, but her eyes betrayed the disbelief she was feeling. "Do you really think that you have an understanding of who they are? Of the pain they've faced every day? I have! I lived countless lives, and have felt every shred pain they have! I had caused them even more, and despite the agony, _you didn't even offer them a choice_?!" The voices were back, and they were screaming over the roar of fire. "_I was the only one who could help herself, and it still wasn't enough!_

"So don't tell me _ever_ that I am nothing in the wake of your existence. _I have seen more and felt more and known more than you can possibly say!_"

I finalized my words with a growl, the light in my eyes dying and the flames of my aura slowly ebbing back. Owlspirit stood with a forepaw lifted defensively. Her yellow eyes glowed with both fury and fear. For a moment, I thought that I had rendered the sharp-tongued spirit speechless, but quickly she straightened herself, and her voice gave her a larger-than-life presence.

"You are wrong, Lonespirit, so very wrong," Owlspirit growled, "You never understood what it means to be a Messenger. It has nothing to do with desire, with hopes, and dreams, and fears. It has nothing to do with the lives you say you lived and the pain you say you've experienced." She advanced towards me, her feather-like fur ruffling in a non-existent wind. "You do get to choose your own destiny. You fail to realize that it is done by your own actions through out your life. It is not a direct decision. You do not simply state what you wish to be. It comes to you as result of the choices you make. We have never once made an unjust decision. We have never once decided against the path they have laid out for themselves. All we are, all we have ever been, are the ones that lead them down that path."

I felt the fire die out completely.

"You may have seen many things, Lonespirit. It is perhaps true that you have discovered more than us," Owlspirit snarled, spreading her magnificent, bird-like wings. "But we are the ones that see it all the way it truly is."

I looked at her, as still as stone, my eyes fixed sadly on her. I observed every feather in her wings, every hair on her pelt, every line on her body.

"Are you happy with yourself?" I asked suddenly, and Owlspirit seemed astonished that she hadn't said enough to put an end to our meeting. "Are you proud that Stormspirit chose you of all cats to follow me in the passage of becoming a Messenger, knowing full well that his disposition had been damaged by my betrayal and his will to teach nearly mutilated? Do you hold sentiment for being my opposite? The ideal Messenger? His salvation following my treachery?" I extended my head towards Owlspirit, teeth bared, and claws unsheathed. "Does it please you to know of my suffering? I have been walking without companionship for years in total silence other than the sound of my paw steps. I've had no choice but to be remorseful, because remorse is all I could feel if I tried to feel anything at all. You tell me I'm sickening, you expect me to carry on with this existence, you try to walk away, but you still come back when I call loud enough, only this time to call me delusional. But how can you? Don't you see? _I got exactly what I wanted!_ The chance to go where I pleased without having to listen to you, and without having to adhere to your idea of peace! I could visit any Spirit Realm, any place on Earth, and no one had the means to stop me, even when they had the ability! And you want to know what? None of that mattered in the end, because I lived my ideal without anyone there beside me! After 400 years, no one likes being alone."

Admittedly, there was no direction to my words. There no point, there was no argument. All I could stand by was a cry for help, and I did not even know what that meant.

Owlspirit's yellow eyes flashed. She folded her wings and the golden light of her aura darkened. She spoke without moving her mouth, her voice joined with another just as familiar. It boomed under her lighter tone like thunder. "Like you have acknowledged, there is no one else to blame but yourself. And that, Spirit That Walks Alone, is the one belief we will share for the remainder of time. Let this meeting of ours be lost in the endlessness of the Unknown, never to resurface once more. I will now turn my back and return to the place I belong to stand among my equivalents both ancient and new as the Current Messenger carries out the duties of all those prior. I will not speak of this moment. We will never meet again. Let these words be my last to you. Goodbye."

She disappeared.

So many time, I had been left feeling nothing. I had turned around and continued to walk just as I had been doing before. I walked when I told Ettore to run; I walked when I left Scorchpaw paralyzed next to the dead body of his mentor; I walked when a lost spirit gave up on me as her guide to StarClan; I walked when I took the spiritual afterlives of dozens of cats; and I walked when Owlspirit and I first met, back when all she knew of me was my name. I wasn't going to walk this time. I wouldn't be tortured by cold and the darkness. I could no longer stand to drift off into absent-mindedness while I failed to breathe in earthly air but lived on anyway.

But there was nothing else to be done.

I'd realized the danger of my influence on the living, and the uselessness of my malice for the dead. My disdain towards the Messengers was a hatred older than my very knowledge of them. From my youth, I was forced down a certain path. My place in the world had been chosen for me before I had the chance to make a destiny-defining choice. Since I was kit, they looked and thought to themselves, _Huntress_. And I couldn't argue, because to them, law and customs meant more than my understanding of my own strengths. If I had only been given a choice, they would have seen that a mere interpretation was worth nothing in the face of my true capabilities, and my resolve.

My purpose had been decided upon before I knew the value of life, both on Earth and in the Unknown.

So if I could not embrace it, then there was nothing left for me.

The cat I one knew of an ash-colored pelt and a gaze of soft light amber, whose name I could remember, and whose life had become a tragedy, in spite of all of his loss, was not alone.

Most who think they are have no idea what it truly means.

If they did, the very word would not exist to them.

Only to me.

And we'd share the the feeling of knowing that she was right.

We'd share the feeling of knowing we are nothing.

**This was my final fan fiction. I will no longer be posting stories on this site. I have dedicated a good four years to writing Warriors fan fiction, with many months spent in crippling writer's block, but I am proud of all I've done. Most of the stories, I wish I could burn, I won't lie, but I'm glad that it exists as a literary journey of my evolution as a writer. **

**I started out with Radiantmask, a boring, one-dimensional, typical main character with less personality than a bar of soap, and her story was one that has been written many times over. Her daughter, Sunmask was a step in the right direction, but still not a character to praise. My RADIANCE trilogy was a generic, poorly constructed trio of cliched fan fictions that stood as the mere beginning of my understanding of storytelling. Later on, as many are aware, I created Frozenleaf, or Ice as she was usually called. I'm sure a lot of you have read stories wherein the main protagonist faced abuse for no other reason than to create forced conflict. Often times, this abused character would head down the path of evil, becoming a completely despicable, irredeemable nutcase who was not just a shell of their former self, but a total monster with no indication of their past personality or innocence. These characters exist for one reason: they're fun to write. That story, among many others like it, received a lot of attention and praise, at one point in its prime being the 11th most reviewed Warriors fan fiction. That number has dropped significantly in the past years, but the former placing speaks to the power of popularity. Trapped in Ice, though beloved by many, was sloppy and unbelievable. However, I did improve greatly as a writer during the four months I spent writing it. **

**As I made my way into its sequel, Caught in Flames, and its prequel, Hailblaze's Story, I started to lose my interest in Warriors, and found it difficult to write with the same passion I had in the past. My interests expanded beyond the stories of feral cats living in the forest. School got harder, I got lazier, and instead of using my free time to be productive, I fell into a rut. I took many breaks over the course of 2013 and 2014, but offscreen, my writing continued to evolve. I took interest in TV and animation, art became a central focus of mine, I found new ways to express myself, including the simple act of speaking out loud to myself in character. **

**Then the time came when a good friend of mine, The Spirit That Comes At Night challenged those on her forum to come up with their own Messengers, a league of spiritual guardians that existed in the Warriors world, but whose power extended beyond StarClan. This is how Lonespirit was born. This was how I took an interest in writing fan fiction again. This is how I managed to combine originality with already existing media. This is To Be Alone, and its my favorite story of them all. I want this to represent my end point. I want this to be how you know me until one day, my books are on the shelves. I'll let you know when. **

**To the few who stuck it through until this moment, if at all, I want to thank you. **

**To those who knew me when my name was Echowind12, thank you.**

**To those who took the extra time to write a review, no matter how short, thank you.**

**To the one person who told me they hated me, and to the many more who said they loved me, thank you. **

**Thank you all.**

**Here's to new beginnings.**

**~Destiny**


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